


Once More Unto the Breach

by winteratdusk



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputee Bucky Barnes, Angst, Bathing/Washing, Captain America: The First Avenger, Dancing, Feelings Realization, Fever, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Recovery, Sickfic, Slow Burn, Sort Of, Vomiting, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:28:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28266891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winteratdusk/pseuds/winteratdusk
Summary: Steve never becomes Captain America, and Bucky never becomes the Winter Soldier. Bucky makes it back from the war in 1945 - but the fight isn't over for either of them.With Bucky grappling with the aftermath of combat, injury, and time spent in captivity, Steve has to step up to take care of him even though he's still facing struggles of his own. As they try to make sense of this new life together, it eventually becomes impossible to avoid confronting the feelings that lie beneath - the underlying reasons why they'll do anything for each other, no matter what.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 43
Kudos: 98





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, thanks for checking this story out:) I wanted to try doing something a little different/longer - not sure how it'll work but figured I may as well try.
> 
> Warnings should be spelled out in the tags - at the moment they apply for the first couple of chapters, but I plan to update them as the story progresses.  
> title is stolen from Shakespeare's Henry V in honor of the schoolwork I should have been writing instead of this fic

**11 03 AM** **12-19-44** **WASHINGTON DC**

**MS REBECCA BARNES**

**82 114th ST BROOKLYN NY**

**  
**THE SECRETARY OF WAR REGRETS TO INFORM YOU THAT SGT JAMES B BARNES OF THE 107TH HAS BEEN REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION SINCE 16 DECEMBER NEAR ARDENNES FRANCE IF FURTHER DETAILS BECOME AVAILABLE YOU WILL BE PROMPTLY NOTIFIED

Steve stumbled across the telegram on his way in the door from work. He was dead tired, his muscles aching from the long hours spent stocking shelves at the grocer’s, his breath coming short in the way that meant an impending cold. Still, the sight of the bland military insignia on the front of the letter immediately reinvigorated him with a sense of anticipation that quickly turned to dread as he scanned the short, impersonal note. 

He supposed he should feel lucky that he at least knew what had happened, that whatever paperwork Bucky had on file with the military still had his family listed as living here and not at the Indiana farmhouse they’d moved out to a few years prior. But with Bucky gone, missing in action half a world away, luck seemed the furthest thing from the equation. 

He stood frozen in the doorway as he read over the note once, twice, three times. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for exactly, but the crisp typewriter print revealed nothing more to him now than it had the first time. The words had just stolen the floor from underneath his feet but expected him to keep on living like he was still on solid ground.

Steve jammed the telegram in his pocket, turned on his heel, and marched back out into the cold December evening.

* * *

_19 Dec 1944, 18:37 hours_

_Steven G. Rogers_

_27 Jackson Ave., Queens, NY_

_**4F:** found not acceptable for induction into active military service_

* * *

**THE NEW YORK TIMES**

December 24, 1944

COLD WEATHER, LOW RATIONS MEAN HARD WINTER FOR TROOPS NEAR ARDENNES

* * *

_24 Dec 1944, 09:17 hours_

_Steven G. Rogers_

_13 155th St., Harlem, NY_

_**4F:** found not acceptable for induction into active military service_

* * *

**THE NEW YORK TIMES**

January 1, 1945

U.S. SENDS IN REINFORCEMENTS AS NUMBERS OF CASUALTIES, MISSING CLIMB

* * *

_3 Jan 1945, 17:22 hours_

_Steven G. Rogers_

_121 Canal St., Manhattan, NY_

_**4F:** found not acceptable for induction into active military service_

* * *

**THE NEW YORK TIMES**

January 18, 1945

ALLIES PREVAIL AGAINST GERMAN CAMPAIGN! PUSH BACK IN COUNTEROFFENSIVE

* * *

  
  


**09 24 AM** **01-25-45** **WASHINGTON DC**

**MS REBECCA BARNES**

**82 114th ST BROOKLYN NY**

**  
**THE SECRETARY OF WAR WISHES TO INFORM YOU THAT SGT JAMES B BARNES OF THE 107TH HAS BEEN LOCATED WOUNDED NEAR STUTTGART GERMANY YOU WILL BE ADVISED AS REPORTS OF CONDITION ARE RECEIVED

* * *

**15 33 PM** **01-27-45** **WASHINGTON DC**

**MS REBECCA BARNES**

**82 114th ST BROOKLYN NY**

**  
**THE SECRETARY OF WAR WISHES TO INFORM YOU THAT SGT JAMES B BARNES OF THE 107TH IS IN STABLE CONDITION EXPECTED TO SHIP TO NEW YORK HARBOR 01 FEBRUARY

The last two telegrams came in what felt like quick succession, so fast that it seemed Steve hardly had time to breathe between receiving the two pieces of news. After more than a month of stasis - of desperately trying to do something, _anything_ at all, but continually being met with closed doors - time seemed to simultaneously speed up and slow impossibly down with an end finally in sight. 

And sure, Bucky was _hurt,_ with only the vague mention of “stable condition” to give Steve any idea how bad, and it was cold and money was tight and everything had just felt _wrong_ ever since Bucky had walked out the door three years prior - but the news had Steve feeling nothing short of elation. Bucky was _alive_ , and he was coming _home,_ and Steve hadn’t realized just how empty things had been without him until these telegrams had propelled him back into Steve’s life. 

Steve stocked the kitchen with as much food as he could afford. He laid out fresh pillows on Bucky’s bed, opened his bedroom window so the room could fill with fresh air. All the motion and light suddenly flooding the normally dark and quiet apartment just served to remind him how hard the past couple of years had been. How alone he’d been.

But that didn’t matter anymore. In just a few days’ time, he’d have his best friend back, and surely that meant that everything that had been so terribly wrong would suddenly feel okay again.

* * *

The first of February dawned deceptively sunny, with a wintry chill still hanging in the air that felt at odds with the bright and cloudless sky. Steve set out for the docks in the early afternoon and soon found himself shivering despite the sunlight. As he got closer to the harbor, he tucked his hands into the arms of his threadbare coat, trying to stave off the chill that, no matter how mild, never failed to turn his fingers blue. 

He could practically hear Bucky’s voice in his mind, admonishing him to _put some gloves on, punk, you’ll freeze out there._ Steve bit back a smile just thinking about it - about how close he was to hearing that long-suffering teasing again, to seeing that soft look underneath letting him know that Bucky wasn’t upset with him, not really. Looking out at the sparkling water had Steve’s heart soaring, practically giddy with the knowledge that any one of the ships steaming in could be the one that finally brought Bucky _home._

He made his way down to the port where ships ferrying men to and from Europe tended to dock. Just a few months earlier it would have been bustling with men in crisp new uniforms excited to go off and serve their country, proud families lining the pier and waving goodbye until the ship was long gone from the harbor, and maybe even for a little while afterwards, just to prolong those last few moments before they had to acknowledge that their boys were really gone. Departures were always an event, but the scene before Steve now was showing him that arrivals were anything but.

In the shade of the bright red cross painted on the hull of the sole ship waiting to disembark, only a couple of families stood huddled. Where sendoffs were marked by blustering cheer and smiles wide to the point of breaking, this crowd gathered now was full of downcast eyes and nervous muttering.

“Didn’t say how bad he was hurt…” 

“With things in Europe as rough as they are, it’s hard to tell…”

Steve wandered closer to the crowd, trying to pick out snippets of the muted conversations. As he approached the group, comprised mostly of mothers with worry etched into their faces and girlfriends nervously biting their lips, he felt a few curious pairs of eyes flicking over towards him before quickly glancing away. Steve tensed his jaw, trying to ignore the looks. It wasn’t hard to comprehend what they meant - with every able-bodied man gone, off serving his country, Steve’s very presence here spoke to his own weakness, the weakness every doctor seemed to see in him when they rejected his enlistment forms and told him it was “for his own good.” On the receiving end of all these biting looks, Steve bitterly doubted that assessment about “his own good” more than ever. 

He was at least saved from having to endure the shame for long. Above them, a gangplank had started descending from the ship. The eyes that had been scrutinizing Steve were suddenly all glued to the ship’s deck, where a few shadowy figures were lining up, presumably to disembark. Steve shoved down his frustration, and frenzied anticipation hurried to take its place. His heart was hammering, bursting with the knowledge that any of those shadows could be _Bucky._

A whistle sounded, signalling the all-clear. There was a flurry of movement on the ship, and finally, finally a line started heading down the gangplank, slow and single-file. Steve’s nervous excitement kept building and building, all the way until those shadowy figures actually started to look like men. Once the light finally hit them, Steve’s anticipation quickly curled up and died.

The men filing off this boat were nothing like the men Steve had looked at with so much envy as they proudly shipped off to war. They were nothing like the troops in the newsreels that Steve watched every chance he got, tall and strong and smiling for the cameras. Rather, they looked more like the men those newsreels taught them to disdain - the captured enemies, marching with their heads downturned behind the purportedly strong American soldiers. All those newsreels had led Steve to believe that the Allies were winning, but the men in front of him now looked wholly and completely defeated. 

They were staggering by with bloodied bandages around their heads, around their ribs, around the stumps of limbs no longer there. Between their uncomfortable thinness and the hunch of their shoulders, they all looked small, somehow, and insubstantial, like Steve was watching a procession of ghosts instead of men. 

And none of them looked at all like Bucky. At this point, Steve didn’t know whether to be disappointed or thankful. 

Steve was craning his neck to peer past the people standing in front of him, wondering if maybe he’d got it wrong and Bucky wasn’t on this ship - wasn’t as bad off as all these haunted men in front of him - when one of the men in question raised his hanging head to reveal an achingly familiar face. Steve promptly forgot how to breathe.

He’d barely recognized him at first. The man was walking slowly, unbalanced and stumbling a little under the weight of a heavy pack slung over his right shoulder. As he stepped off the gangplank and onto solid ground, he turned towards Steve, and the first thing Steve noticed about him was the void of empty space where his left arm ought to have been. He’d foregone wearing his uniform jacket, leaving him in just a thin cotton undershirt that put the bulky bandage around what was left of his shoulder on full display. The limb ended in those few inches of gauze, which looked old and worn but was thankfully devoid of blood. Steve's eyes had been stuck on that bandage, hardly able to look away - and then the man had looked up, and he was pale and haggard, and there were circles under his eyes so dark they looked like bruises, but Steve knew without a doubt that it was him. He’d know that face anywhere.

_“Bucky.”_

Steve was at his side in an instant, uncaring as he elbowed his way through the tiny crowd that had gathered to watch the men disembark. The moment felt _years_ overdue, like it was all Steve’s life had been building up to since that night at the Stark expo with Bucky all outfitted in his smart dress uniform, flashing smiles at everyone who looked his way like he thought all that confidence might hide the fear hovering just beneath the surface.

(Maybe Steve had been the only one who’d felt it, but he’d known that fear was there, if only from how tightly Bucky had clung to him when Steve had hugged him goodbye. In the end, Steve had been the one to pull away. He hadn’t stopped thinking about it since.)

Steve had told himself that when Bucky came back ( _if_ he came back, a traitorous voice in his head always whispered) the first thing he’d do would be to finish that hug, to hold Bucky tight the way he should have the first time and never let him go again. But now, even surrounded by other soldiers embracing their loved ones, and with Bucky finally standing _right in front of him,_ he couldn’t bring himself to do it. 

The Bucky standing in front of him now was hardly a shadow of the one he’d said goodbye to three years prior. Steve took in the flushed cheeks stretched over too-sharp cheekbones, the glassy sheen on his tired grey eyes, the way his now-mismatched shoulders sagged with absolute, bone-deep exhaustion, or maybe some other, invisible weight that Steve couldn’t name. Even the way he was looking at Steve was different; in his normally bright and expressive eyes, all Steve could see was a flat emptiness, a void where life should have been.

He seemed small, and fragile, and _broken,_ and Steve was afraid to put his arms around him lest he somehow broke apart or started to crumble to dust in his hands. Only when Bucky took a tentative step forward, not quite meeting Steve’s eyes but half-lifting an arm in his direction, did Steve find the strength to close the gap between them.

“God, you jerk, I missed you,” Steve said thickly, winding his arms around Bucky’s back and burying his face against his good shoulder. He smelled strange, like sweat and salt and rust, but he was warm and he was breathing, and it was everything Steve could have possibly hoped for. He wrapped his arms tighter around Bucky, who sagged limply against him, not quite returning the embrace but still leaning into Steve with everything he had. Steve vowed that this time, no matter what, he wouldn’t pull away.

With his arms around him, Steve could feel just how _thin_ Bucky was, his spine a well-defined ridge in his back and his ribs jutting sharply through his skin. The warmth coming off of him that had first been so comforting was maybe verging on _too_ warm, even though there was also a shivering tremor running through him that left Steve cursing the frosty breeze coming in from the open water. Steve was near to breaking his silent promise and pulling away - just to ask Bucky if there was anything he could do for him, anything at all - but then Bucky’s remaining hand was pressing into Steve’s back, and his nose was buried in Steve’s hair, and Steve was resolved to just stand still and hold him, however long it took. 

As they hugged, the tremor running through Bucky’s body continued to ramp up. Steve rubbed his hands up and down Bucky’s bony spine, hoping the gesture might generate some warmth, but the shaking just seemed to be getting worse. Only when Steve started to feel something warm and wet dripping into his hair did he start to put the pieces together.

“Oh, hey. Hey.” Steve’s hands were instantly at Bucky’s cheeks, tilting his face up so he could see the tear tracks glistening there. He moved his thumbs to gently wipe them away. “Buck, it’s okay.”

Bucky squeezed his eyes shut, ducking his head so that Steve’s hands fell away from his face. He sniffled a little, then quickly removed his hand from Steve’s back to cover his mouth and nose, like he was ashamed he’d let the sound slip out. Without Steve’s steady balance, he swayed a little, and Steve hurriedly reached out to take him by the elbow. 

“You’re okay,” Steve murmured, feeling his heart splinter into pieces as he watched Bucky try to swallow his tears. “You’re safe now, alright? That’s all that matters. It’s gonna be okay.”

Bucky tensed his jaw with a sense of grim determination that seemed at odds with his slumped, defeated posture. He swiped shakily at his cheeks, wiping away most of his tears as well as a layer of clammy sweat that had gathered on his overwarm skin. Slowly, definitively, he nodded.

“Yeah,” Steve said, trying to swallow a lump in his own throat. “You’re alright. Let’s… let’s get you home. Okay?”

Bucky nodded once more, though it looked like it took an effort. His face was growing ever paler under the uncomfortable flush of his cheeks, and his eyes seemed cloudier than Steve remembered them. 

Steve had thought that just having Bucky back within arm’s reach, right where he had been for Steve’s entire life, would be enough to set every wrong thing right again - but the longer he stood looking into Bucky’s blank eyes, the more unsettled he felt. For as long as he could remember, Bucky had been the one constant around which his entire world revolved, always rock-solid, always sure of himself. Now here he was, torn apart and slumped in defeat, looking at Steve like he was the strong one. 

But Steve didn’t feel strong, not really. Looking at Bucky’s grey and shadowed face, all he registered was the all-too-familiar feeling of powerlessness.

In the end, all he could do was lay a hand on Bucky’s back and guide him away from the unloading ship, away from the bustle of the crowd and the cold bite of the wind. He continually reminded himself that, no matter how hurt or haunted or just plain sick Bucky seemed, he was _home_. They could deal with the rest in time. For now, they were together, and surely that was all they could possibly need. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky comes home, and Steve begins to realize that things maybe aren't quite right.

“Kept the place just like you left it. Didn’t even move your stuff around, ‘cept to clean it. Can’t say I don’t do my part to clean up anymore, huh? It’s been all me since you left…”

Steve led Bucky through the door of their dilapidated apartment, chatting aimlessly to fill the silence. He’d been trying to strike up a conversation with Bucky ever since they’d left the harbor, but Bucky, normally the talkative one, still hadn’t said a word. He seemed especially withdrawn now, stopping on his way in to sag heavily against the doorframe, like the walk back from the docks had sapped away all the strength he had left. 

Steve had bustled ahead into the kitchen, but when he realized Bucky was no longer with him he turned around. Bucky was still braced against the doorframe, his eyelids drooping so low they’d almost fallen all the way shut. Steve rushed back to his side.

“Buck. Hey.”

Bucky’s eyes fluttered back open, and he fixed Steve with a look that was equal parts desperate and empty. Unable to stop himself, Steve reached up to his face again, brushing the back of his hand first against Bucky’s cheek, then against his sweaty forehead. His fingers were still tinged blue from the cold. Bucky didn’t seem to notice. 

“Are - are you feeling okay? I mean, obviously you’re not, I just - you feel really hot. I think you might be sick…” Steve trailed off, feeling increasingly incompetent in the face of Bucky’s blank, uncomprehending stare. Bucky needed him, maybe more than he’d realized, and he had no idea what to do.

After a moment, Bucky cleared his throat, wincing like it hurt. When he finally spoke, his voice was gravelly with disuse. “Steve…”

“Yeah?”

“I’m… I don’t... feel so good.”

Steve swallowed hard. “I know,” he said. “Why don’t you come sit down, okay? Put this down…” When Bucky didn’t move, Steve reached for the pack still draped over Bucky’s shoulder, guiding it down his arm and dropping it to the floor. He loosely ushered Bucky through the doorway, still wary of his bandaged left side. He’d intended to steer Bucky towards the couch, or maybe his bedroom, but Bucky stopped short on the way in with his eyes fixated on the kitchen. Steve followed Bucky’s intensely focused gaze to a pot sitting on the stove, still simmering. 

“Oh, yeah. Put that on this morning. Figured you might be hungry. Are you -” Before Steve could even finish talking, Bucky was nodding with more vigor than Steve had seen him exhibit all day. Steve smiled softly. “Okay. Here, I can fix you something.” 

Bucky staggered over to collapse in one of the two rickety wooden chairs that sat bookending their dining table, and Steve, unable to help himself, took a moment to just look at him. He’d been eating his dinners facing that empty chair for far too long now, wondering if it’d ever be full again or if he’d be doomed to eat staring at the blank wall beyond it forever. Bucky may have been down an arm and thinner than Steve had ever seen him, but the rest of him was finally back and sitting in the same spot he always had, and for the first time in a long time, the apartment was starting to feel like home again.

Steve put together a couple of bowls of stew, and pulled out a loaf of bread for good measure. It seemed almost unduly extravagant - with Bucky gone, money had been especially tight, and Steve had gotten accustomed to living on the bare minimum - but if anything called for a little indulgence, he reasoned, it was Bucky making it home (mostly) intact. He put the food on the table with a flourish.

Bucky quickly grabbed for his bowl. His singular hand was shaking hard, but he ignored it as he attacked the meager amount of stew and bread with surprising accuracy. Steve paused with a spoon poised halfway between his bowl and his mouth, suddenly unable to do anything but watch. 

Bucky ate like he was _ravenous,_ like he wasn’t sure he’d ever be fed again. He barely even paused to swallow between bites, leaning over his bowl the whole time like he thought someone would snatch it away if he gave them the slightest opportunity. He didn’t look up until his spoon scraped the bottom of the dish. When he did, he met Steve’s eyes, and Steve quickly glanced away, red-faced.

“Sorry,” Bucky said after a moment, then paused to clear his throat. “I just…”

“What? No,” Steve said quickly. “Don’t be.”

“You keep looking at me funny.”

Steve shook his head, forcing himself to meet Bucky’s eyes again. They already looked clearer, nutrition helping the fog of feverish exhaustion give way to something softer. It maybe wasn’t quite the gleam Steve remembered seeing there, but it was pretty damn close.

“It’s - it’s nothing, Buck. I’m just really glad you’re home.”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth lifted in something that could almost be called a smile. His frighteningly pale face was beginning to color again, and Steve felt himself starting to return that small half-smile as the Bucky in front of him began to align with the one in his head, the one that populated his fondest memories. 

But that illusion couldn’t last. Memory and reality quickly separated themselves again when Bucky sat up from the table and tried to lean back in his chair. As soon as his shoulder blades made contact with the chair’s hard wooden backing, he gasped and jolted forward, face contorting in a grimace.

“Oh god.” Steve was instantly on his feet, reaching out to Bucky but once again holding back from actually touching him. With the years they’d just spent apart, the sort of casual touch that had once been so easy between them now felt fraught and unsure. Steve clenched his fists, hating himself for it.

“What happened?” he asked instead. “Are you okay? What can I do?”

Bucky slowly shook his head, eyes still squeezed shut in that expression of barely contained agony. Sweat had broken out on his face again, and his hairline was dampening, bangs starting to curl and stick to his forehead. He swallowed hard before letting out a long breath.

“Fucking hurts,” he managed through gritted teeth. 

“Yeah,” Steve breathed, taking the admission as permission to look over the bandage covering what remained of Bucky’s shoulder. It had been clean when he’d left the ship, but Steve could now see tiny darkened spots blooming under the layers of fabric - spots that looked uncomfortably like blood. Steeling himself, Steve finally forced himself to ask.

“What… what happened to you, Buck?”

Bucky’s shoulders sagged. He pushed out a long breath, longer than Steve would have thought possible, like he was trying to deflate himself entirely. When he glanced back over at Steve, his eyes were cloudy again - with memory or unshed tears, Steve wasn’t sure. 

“It… it was real bad,” he finally said, his voice breaking a little over the words. “I can’t - can’t talk about it. I’m sorry, I -”

“It’s okay,” Steve said quickly. “It’s fine, Buck. And I’m so glad to see you, really. Just - it seems like you’re really hurting. Shouldn’t the army doctors still be looking after you? Just to make sure you’re alright?”

Bucky’s shoulders were shaking now. Steve wished he could pull back his words, wished he’d just left it alone, but all he could do was watch with bated breath as Bucky swallowed once, twice, three times in quick succession before opening his mouth to speak.

“I know. But I couldn't, Stevie, I just… I wanted to go _home.”_

“Okay,” Steve murmured, fighting to keep his throat from closing up. Steve Rogers never cried, and he wasn’t about to change that now, not when Bucky needed him to be strong. “It’s okay.” 

“Steve,” Bucky whispered desperately, his voice coming out wet.

“Right here.” Steve reached up a hand to push Bucky’s sweaty bangs away from his forehead, concern ramping up as he felt the heat radiating in waves from Bucky’s skin. 

“I’m gonna -” Bucky cut himself off with a wet hiccup, pressing his hand over his mouth as his shoulders hunched uncontrollably forward. 

“Oh, shit. Okay.” Steve quickly worked to haul Bucky up by the elbow, putting all his strength into supporting him and tugging his nearly dead weight across the monumental distance of four feet between the table and the basin of the kitchen sink. They barely made it before Bucky was bracing himself on the counter with his shaking hand and vomiting up his dinner into the sink.

“Aw, Buck,” Steve murmured, trying to keep worry from bleeding into his voice. He slowly traced his fingers up and down Bucky’s spine as he heaved. “It’s okay. You’re alright.”

The retches quickly turned painful and dry, and Steve winced in sympathy. His fingers meandered up to Bucky’s neck, running through the sweaty tendrils of hair stuck to his burning skin. With Bucky in such rough shape, all those boundaries that had built up in the years they’d spent apart were starting to fall away. Steve hadn’t even thought about what it meant to touch him like this - he’d just done it. He kept it up, though, massaging tiny circles into the back of Bucky’s neck as he hiccuped and tried to catch his breath.

“‘M sorry,” Bucky said shakily once the heaves had broken off into shallow, nauseous panting. “Think I just - haven’t really been eating that much.”

“No, don’t apologize.” Steve knew Bucky was telling the truth - as he leaned over the sink, Steve could see as well as feel his ribs and the bony ridge of his spine standing out beneath the thin fabric of his shirt - but Steve couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was wrong, something worse. “You’re burning up, though, Buck. Do you think maybe you’re also sick?”

Bucky spat into the sink, then carefully dislodged his hand from the counter to wipe his mouth. The motion seemed to pull at his injured shoulder, and Steve watched helplessly as pain rippled across his face. 

“I dunno,” Bucky finally replied, his voice wavering. “Just feel like shit.”

“Can I help you lie down?” Steve asked. “Would that help?” He wasn’t going to cry today. He wasn’t.

Bucky looked conflicted for a moment, illness clearly warring with his pride just behind his eyes. Eventually, illness seemed to win out. He nodded, the motion leaving him unsteady and swaying slightly on his feet.

“Okay,” Steve whispered. He worried for a moment about the logistics of it - he knew he couldn’t carry Bucky to his bedroom, but Bucky looked barely a moment from toppling over, and Steve wasn’t sure he’d be able to haul him off the ground either. He settled for ducking under Bucky’s arm and securing it around his shoulders, taking as much of Bucky’s weight as he could without falling over himself. Bucky stumbled a little over the apartment’s scuffed wooden floors, and Steve felt sweat break out on his forehead as his back bent under what was almost Bucky’s full weight. 

_“I’m doing you a favor, son,”_ the doctors had all said. _“I’m sending you home. Guy of your size has no place in this fight.”_ Steve gritted his teeth, pulling Bucky past the threshold of his bedroom, standing tall even as his knees wanted to collapse. They were wrong about him, he told himself. Try as they might to “save” him, Steve had ended up in this fight anyway - and he didn’t intend to lose. He could do this.

* * *

Steve deposited Bucky on his bed, coughing as dust puffed up from the long-unused quilt. He half-expected Bucky to jump into action and start worrying over him, to start cursing the damned dust in their shitty apartment, or maybe vow like he sometimes did to get Steve out of the city someday, take him somewhere with clean air where he could breathe easy. Instead, Bucky just groaned as he went from upright to seated, shoulders tensing up as though pain had wound the muscles beneath them tight.

“Sorry,” Steve rasped once he managed to get his cough under control. "Here, let me just…”

He took the pillows from the head of Bucky’s bed and piled them up against the rusty headboard, then gently pressed Bucky’s good shoulder to encourage him to lie down. Bucky gasped as he did it, eyes going wide as his back settled into the pillows.

“What's wrong?” Steve asked, instantly worried. “Does it hurt?”

“No, just - softer’n I thought. Thought I was gonna fall…”

Steve sighed, heart breaking a little to hear the exhausted slur coloring Bucky’s words. Bucky certainly looked exhausted, thin body slumped back and appearing especially small against the mound of pillows. He didn’t even seem able to hold his head up; it lolled sideways towards his right shoulder as he blinked blearily at Steve, still perched at the foot of his bed. 

“What?” Bucky mumbled after a pause. Steve jumped, realizing he’d been staring a bit too long at the way Bucky’s eyelashes kept falling into long blinks against his flushed cheeks, at the perfect pink shade of his slightly slack lips. 

“Nothing,” Steve said quickly, forcing his attention back to the task at hand. “Why don’t I just… help you with these, huh?” Steve’s roving eyes had alighted on Bucky’s army-issued boots, still laced onto his feet over his rough green uniform pants. Steve busied himself with the task of untying them, ears reddening a little as he did it. He couldn’t shake the (irrational, totally irrational) feeling that he’d just been caught looking at something he shouldn’t.

“‘M sorry,” Bucky mumbled as Steve pulled off the second boot. Steve finally managed to look at him again. His hair, as well as the neckline of his t-shirt, was dark with sweat, and eyes were half-lidded, almost drifting shut.

“Hey,” Steve murmured, dropping the boot to the floor and scooting up to sit closer to Bucky’s head. “What do you mean? What for?”

“For… y’know. This. Not s’posed to be so…” Bucky made a vague gesture towards the length of his body. “This. Can’t even take my own boots off.”

“Buck, c’mon.” Unable to help himself, Steve reached out to Bucky again, delicately brushing Bucky’s sweaty bangs aside with his fingers as he spoke. “You gotta stop apologizing, pal. This is nothing. I mean it.”

When Bucky’s glassy eyes still looked distrusting, Steve continued. “I mean, really, how many times have you looked after me when I was sick, huh? How many times have you taken extra hours to buy my medicine, or cleaned up for me when I couldn’t, or sat up all night with me just to make sure I kept breathing?” Bucky just blinked up at him in response. The hand Steve had been using to wipe hair and sweat from Bucky’s forehead stilled, and then, almost of its own accord, traced a pathway down his temple to rest on his slightly stubbled cheek. 

“Seriously, Buck,” Steve said, meeting Bucky’s eyes and holding his gaze. “It's about time I did some taking care of you, too. It’s the least I can do.” 

Finally, Bucky seemed to believe him. He at least stopped outwardly doubting him, instead giving in and leaning his head into Steve’s hand. Steve smiled sadly, gently rubbing at Bucky’s face with his thumb as he tried to gauge his temperature. If anything, he realized, the blistering heat radiating from Bucky’s skin was only increasing.

“What else can I do to help you?” Steve asked. Bucky flinched a little at the sound, lines of pain popping up on his face, and Steve hurriedly dropped his voice to a whisper. “Do you want any more blankets? Some water, maybe?”

“I just…” Bucky slurred, his eyes sliding shut. He reached up and blindly felt out Steve’s hand, wrapping his clammy fingers around Steve’s wrist. “Really don’ feel good. Want you to - to stay with me. Please?” He cracked his eyes open a sliver, and they were hazy with fever, but there was a desperation there that seemed to run far deeper than sick delirium. 

“Of course, Buck,” Steve breathed. “Of course.”

Steve gently pulled his wrist free of Bucky’s grasp, reaching down to squeeze his hand once before letting him go. He kicked off his shoes before peeling off his shirt, leaving him clad just as Bucky was in loose-fitting pants and a threadbare undershirt. He climbed carefully back onto the bed, trying not to disturb the mattress too much and cause Bucky more pain than he was already clearly in. 

Bucky was still breathing shallowly, his arm splayed out by his side. He didn’t reach out for Steve again, whether because he was too weak or too close to falling asleep, Steve wasn’t sure. Steve reached out for Bucky instead, wrapping both of his arms around Bucky’s one and resting his chin on the pillows near his shoulder, so close he could hear every breath entering and leaving Bucky’s body. So close he swore he could almost feel his heartbeat. 

They’d slept this way countless times before. They’d curled up in each other’s beds when it was windy and cold and they needed each other’s body heat for warmth. They’d slept side by side on the nights when Steve was sickest and Bucky refused to leave him no matter what. It had sometimes just _happened,_ when they’d been talking or reading or listening to the radio so late into the evening that they ended up lying down and drifting off, not even realizing how close they were until they woke up nose to nose the next morning.

This time, though, as Steve curled up beside Bucky, watching the light of the setting sun seep in through the blinds of the window and cast his face in shadow, something felt different. His eyes were glued to the silhouette of Bucky’s face in the dim evening light, involuntarily tracing the familiar lines of his profile like he needed to commit them to memory even though he already had. 

Even when his own eyes finally slipped shut, all Steve could see was Bucky, laid out in perfect detail on the backs of his eyelids, his familiar face bleeding into Steve’s dreams. The three years since he’d last seen Bucky’s face had damn near felt like an eternity. Now that that face was finally resting on the pillow next to him again, some part of Steve was beginning to realize that he didn’t ever want to stop looking at it.

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky gets a bath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Sorry I know I'm dragging this out but if I can't just write a bunch of long and self-indulgent hurt/comfort then what even is the point of AO3)

Steve jolted awake when he felt someone thrashing on the mattress beside him. The room was fully dark now, and it took him a moment to piece together why he was here, still half-dressed and curled up on top of the quilt of an unfamiliar bed, boiling hot even though it was February and he hadn’t even fallen asleep under a blanket. Then a flailing arm came into contact with his chest, and the previous day’s events started flooding back to him. 

“Hey. Hey, Buck. Wake up, pal.” Steve pushed himself to a seated position, still blinking tiredness away from his own eyes as he reached out to Bucky’s shoulder and shook it gently, trying to get him conscious and alert. Bucky groaned, eyes still squeezed shut in sleep as his arm and legs continued to thrash against the bed.

“It’s alright, Bucky. Just - just try to open your eyes for me, alright?” Steve’s heart thrummed nervously in his chest as he registered the heat seeping into his fingers from Bucky’s shoulder. With Bucky still stubbornly clinging to sleep, Steve had no way of telling whether his distress was a result of his obvious nightmare or his yet more obvious fever. 

“Mm- no- please…” Bucky muttered to himself, the words coming out so slurred Steve barely recognized them.

“You’re alright, Buck,” Steve lied. “Just a bad dream. C’mon, pal.”

Steve gripped Bucky’s shoulder again, this time shaking a little harder. Finally, Bucky’s glassy eyes were blinking open, gleaming dazedly at Steve through the darkness.

“There you are,” Steve said breathlessly. He wanted more than anything to feel relieved, but Bucky still looked so terrified that Steve couldn’t keep his worry from kicking into a higher gear.

And then Bucky started talking, and Steve knew he’d been right to worry. 

“Please,” Bucky gasped, curling into a defensive fetal position on the bed. He moved slowly, stiffly, like his whole body hurt. “Stop it. N-no more, I just - I can’t.” His wandering eyes managed to settle on Steve’s. _“Please.”_

Steve felt like he’d been punched in the gut. 

“I’m not - I’m not doing anything. It’s just me, Buck. It’s Steve.”

Bucky groaned and shook his head, eyes still foggy and devoid of recognition. “No, you’re… please, I just… wanna go home...”

“But - you are,” Steve insisted, still reeling. “You are home. You’re with me. Promise.”

Bucky squinted at him, his gaze going, if possible, even cloudier. “Where… Becca?” 

Steve’s heart plummeted to the floor. “Not quite,” he said sadly. “Becca’s in Indiana, Buck. Remember? Your family moved out to the farm. You’re in New York, with me.”

Bucky sighed shakily, reaching up his trembling hand to rub at his forehead, which was wrinkled in confusion - or maybe pain, Steve wasn’t sure. He still didn’t acknowledge Steve, still gave no indication he fully knew where he was, but the panicked rhythm of his breath was easing up and his tight muscles were starting to relax, and Steve decided he’d have to count it as a win. 

With Bucky seeming marginally calmer, Steve reached out to press his perpetually icy fingers to Bucky’s forehead. He was only hoping to get a better idea of just how bad the obviously substantial fever was, but his train of thought was completely derailed when Bucky suddenly grabbed for his wrist, gripping it with more strength than Steve would have thought possible. Steve held his breath; Bucky may very well have been incapacitated with fever, but if he was still lost in some memory he thought he had ot fight his way out of, Steve wasn’t sure he stood a chance.

But he didn’t have to worry. Bucky just clung to him, holding Steve’s cool fingers even more tightly against his blistering skin. 

“Yeah,” Steve murmured sadly, watching Bucky’s eyes flit closed as he absorbed the cold from his body. “You’re really burning up, huh?”

Bucky grumbled in what Steve assumed was agreement. Steve worked to get his thoughts back in order, to remember all the times the roles had been reversed and he’d been the one in need of help. Bucky had always managed to swoop in with a remedy - between that and the secondhand nursing experience Steve had picked up from his mother, he was sure he could figure out _something._

“If we can just get that fever down, you’re gonna feel a whole lot better,” Steve assured Bucky. He delicately extricated his wrist from Bucky’s grip, trying to ignore his guilt as Bucky whimpered and grabbed for his hand. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll do you one better, though. D’you think you can get up?”

Bucky tried, but his singular, shaking hand wasn’t enough to lift his body off the bed. Steve stepped in to help him, supporting his back and lifting him gently into a seated position. The quilt below Bucky’s body was damp with fever sweat, but his skin was unsettlingly dry. His shoulders seemed permanently bowed forward in defeat, and he hung his head below them like it hurt. Steve couldn’t resist lingering his hand on Bucky’s back a little longer than strictly necessary to prop him up, rubbing gently back and forth over the taut muscles between his shoulder blades. 

“Okay,” Steve said softly. “I’m gonna help you, Buck, don’t worry. You just gotta bear with me for a minute.”

Bucky barely acknowledged him, just muttered something indistinct, eyes still glued to his knees. Steve didn’t push it - he’d had enough high fevers himself to know that Bucky’s sleepy confusion had to be at least bordering on delirium. Instead he got to work tugging Bucky to his feet, working to drape his larger body over his shoulders and support him down the hallway to their tiny, shared bathroom. 

Once they reached the bathroom, Steve flipped on the lights, and the room’s dim lightbulb flickered to life. Bucky was clearly struggling to stay upright, his knees buckling repeatedly as he hung off Steve for support. The position was making Steve’s spine scream in protest, and he only felt a little bad when he finally wormed his way out from under Bucky and spotted him while he crumpled to the floor. 

“Sorry,” Steve panted, propping Bucky’s limp body up to lean against the side of their dented tin bathtub. “Just hang tight for a second.”

Steve guiltily turned away from Bucky, trying to hide how hard he was fighting to catch his breath as he set about turning on the bathtub faucet and letting the basin slowly fill with lukewarm water. He’d never admit it, but with Bucky in tow, even the short walk from the bedroom to the bathroom had both his legs and lungs burning, succinct reminders from his body that he was maybe, possibly, a little bit out of his depth here.

But no, this was _Bucky,_ who’d clearly been through hell, who’d fought and starved and bled for three years in Europe, who for once actually _needed_ him. Steve would be damned if he didn’t deliver. 

He ran a hand through the rising bathwater, testing the temperature. Their apartment’s faulty plumbing and perpetually short supply of hot water were usually inconveniences at best, but Steve found himself grateful now, trying to run Bucky a bath that was cool enough to dampen his fever without being painfully cold. Once he was satisfied with the tepid temperature, Steve turned off the tap and returned his attention to Bucky, still sprawled limply on the floor.

Bucky’s eyes were closed, his head tilted back to expose the length of his neck as he rested against the cold metal of the tub. His chest was rising and falling rapidly with shallow breaths, and Steve could see slight tremors running up and down his limbs. 

“Hey,” Steve said quietly, gently tapping Bucky’s cheek. Bucky’s eyes slowly made their way open. He tried to lift his head to look at Steve, but he couldn’t hold it up, and it ended up falling forward towards his chest. Steve had to manually cup his chin and support him until they were looking eye to eye.

“I know. I know you’re feeling awful. How does a bath sound, huh? Help you cool down a little?”

Bucky shook his head minutely from side to side, face screwing up as his headache clearly shot up another notch. “S-so cold - don’t want to - I need - Steve, please -”

Steve had to glance away from Bucky’s pleading face to keep tears from springing up in his own eyes. He wasn’t sure if Bucky was begging him or begging _for_ him, but lingering on either possibility was enough to thoroughly break his heart.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said once he could finally trust his voice. “I know. Believe me, I know. But this is gonna make you feel better. You just have to trust me, Bucky. Can you do that? Please?”

Bucky searched Steve’s face desperately with eyes that seemed just barely able to focus. Steve held his breath, certain he wouldn’t be able to force Bucky into anything he didn’t want, even something as innocuous and helpful as a bath.

“...Steve?” Bucky slurred after a moment.

“Yep. Right here.”

“Are you… real?”

Steve swallowed hard. “Yeah. Real as you are, Buck.” He gripped Bucky’s uninjured shoulder gently with his free hand, hoping the contact might help ground him in reality. The gesture brought with it memories of his mother’s funeral, of spare keys and couch cushions and Bucky’s hand on his shoulder as he insisted they were together ‘til the end of the line. Steve only hoped he could muster up a fraction of the warmth and safety and _relief_ he’d felt that day and channel it back to Bucky now. 

After a long moment, Bucky finally seemed to relent. “...’kay,” he breathed, tipping his head back to rest against the tub again. “Wanna believe you, Stevie.”

Steve felt a grin split his face. “Good. That’s so good. Let me just…”

Steve worried for a moment over Bucky’s clothes. He didn’t want to go near his shirt for fear of disrupting the bandage wrapped around his shoulder beneath. And his pants… well. A different problem, but a problem nonetheless.

Still, he could either deal with the clothes now or afterwards, and afterwards they’d be wet on top of it all. Slowly, Steve twitched his fingers towards the hem of Bucky’s shirt. 

Bucky whimpered a little as Steve lifted up the fabric and the cool air of the bathroom met his skin. The tiny, pained sound filled Steve with horrible guilt, but he pressed on, gently guiding the shirt over Bucky’s head and injured shoulder to deposit it on the floor.

He couldn’t help but suck in a breath as Bucky’s trembling chest came into view. The two of them had lived together through several scorching New York summers, meaning they’d seen each other shirtless plenty of times, just out of necessity. There had been a point in time when it had been second nature for Bucky to peel off his sweaty shirt as soon as he got home from the docks and spend the evening going around the apartment bare-chested, well-defined muscles on full display. Those images were somehow still stored in Steve’s mind in very detailed clarity, a fact which made the sight in front of him now even more shocking by comparison.

The ribs he’d felt through Bucky’s shirt while rubbing his back were just as visually prominent through his skin, standing out beneath the much leaner muscles of his chest and highlighting the visible concavity of his stomach. His whole midsection was dotted with bruises, most of which were tinted the sickly yellow-green color that meant they were old, almost healed. The exception was the skin just beneath the bandage wrapped around his left side. The ribs extending below were marred with fresher marks, pink and angry against his pale skin, climbing up his side and disappearing beneath the bottom edge of his bandage.

“Oh, god.” Almost involuntarily, Steve reached out a hand and hovered it over the injured area, desperately wanting to provide some comfort but terrified to actually come into contact with the puffy and obviously aching skin. Bucky shivered harder as Steve’s cold hand came near him, and Steve withdrew his touch. 

This was bad, he thought, eyes still glued to Bucky’s chest even as he moved to help wrestle him out of his pants. This might be more than he could handle.

“Okay,” he whispered once Bucky was down to his briefs and trembling against the cracked tile of the bathroom floor. “Let’s get you up…” Steve tugged at his arm until Bucky got with the program, shoving against the floor with his shaking legs and helping support some of his own weight as Steve lifted him, one leg at a time, over the edge of the tub.

Bucky immediately slumped back against the tub’s edge, everything about him exuding fatigue. He let his head drift to rest near his good shoulder, eyes hovering somewhere between open and shut.

“Careful,” Steve said softly. “Try to keep that bandage out of the water, okay?” He ran what he hoped was a comforting hand over Bucky’s uninjured shoulder before getting up to rummage through the bathroom cabinets. He managed to find a couple of rags and a chipped mug, the latter of which he paused at the sink to fill with water before returning to Bucky’s side. 

“Hey,” Steve murmured as he knelt beside the tub. Bucky pried his eyes open and managed to raise his head to look at Steve, who smiled softly at him. “Think you might be able to drink something for me?”

Bucky swallowed hard, face going visibly paler as he processed Steve’s words. Steve worried for a second that he was about to be sick into the bath, but after a moment he seemed to get the nausea under control. Tensing his jaw, he nodded.

“Good,” Steve said. Not even wanting to trust Bucky’s shaking hand with the mug of water, Steve took a deep breath and held up the cup himself, letting the rim just barely brush Bucky’s lips. After a slow moment of realization, Bucky opened his mouth a fraction, letting Steve administer a few small sips of water. He soon clamped his lips shut, gulping against what looked like more than just the water, but Steve still held the mug there until he was sure Bucky was absolutely finished, refusing any more with another tiny shake of his head. 

“Okay. That’s okay,” Steve said, setting the cup aside. “We can try again later. Let’s just work on getting you cooled off for now.” He shifted his attention to the rags, dipping one into the lukewarm bathwater and swirling it around to wet it through.

“You remember doing this for me?” he asked, taking the wet rag and using it to dab at Bucky’s blistering forehead. Bucky’s jaw trembled from what Steve assumed was the cold as a few loose droplets of water slid down his face. “Used to help me out like this all the time. Every time I was sick, seemed like you knew exactly what to do.”

Bucky hummed quietly. Steve wasn’t sure if he was agreeing or just responding to the feeling of the cool rag on his skin. Steve was massaging it against his neck, trying to absorb some of the heat burning there before moving down to scrub gently at his chest and arm. 

“Yeah,” Steve said. “You’ve always had my back. Don’t - don’t know what I’d do without you, y’know?” He’d meant the words to be comforting, but as soon as he said them he was suddenly having a hard time breathing, having a hard time even looking at Bucky through a sheen of barely suppressed tears. It was _true,_ truer than he’d ever realized, and only in the wake of having actually lost Bucky once did he understand. He needed Bucky, and not just for things like taking care of him when he was too sick to do it himself. For everything. 

Steve had swept the rag across most of Bucky’s chest, down the length of his pronounced ribcage and back up again - but as he neared the inflamed area on the left side of his chest, he stopped, frozen. He didn’t want to admit it, not even to himself, but he was _scared._ What if Bucky wasn’t just sick? What if he was hurt worse than they thought, hurt so bad he…

Steve couldn’t even finish the thought. 

Instead of washing the other side of Bucky’s chest, Steve retreated, playing his rag up and down the length of Bucky’s arm as he forced himself to breathe evenly again. He traced a path between the few small freckles dotting Bucky’s bicep, half-imagining they were stars in some constellation that only he knew the shape of. He’d known Bucky almost his whole life, but he’d never quite looked at him closely enough to know those freckles were there. Focusing on this innocuous new detail, as opposed to everything else new about Bucky that had been cruelly forced upon him by the war, Steve finally started to feel like he wasn’t imminently falling apart.

“Okay,” he said once he’d blinked away the last of his would-be tears. He looked from Bucky’s arm to his face and was surprised to find him almost alert, watching him. Steve offered him a shaky smile, but he couldn’t keep his cheeks from reddening a little as he wondered what Bucky must think of him, sitting there and staring at the patterns on his skin. “Can you talk to me, Buck? Tell me how you’re feeling?”

Bucky opened his mouth, hesitating a little over his words. When he finally spoke, his voice was weak and thin. “Sick,” he croaked. “Everything just - hurts, real bad. All achy. And my arm…”

Steve sucked in a breath, forcing his fingers over to trace the very edge of Bucky’s bandage.

“Here? You shoulder?”

“No,” Bucky insisted. “My _arm.”_ His bleary eyes were now trained on his empty left side, leaving Steve taken aback, unsure which arm he was really talking about. 

“Yeah,” he managed. “ That looks like it hurts a lot, Buck. I’m sorry. I can tell it’s not healed.”

Bucky made an uncomfortable sound, still staring down with that glassy look that had Steve wondering what he was actually seeing. Steve followed his gaze, trying to piece it together, and landed on the once-clean bandage, now definitely stained with something that Steve thought might be blood. 

“Right.” Steve took a deep breath, willing his hands to stop shaking. “I’m so sorry, Buck, but I’m gonna - I’m gonna try to see what we’re dealing with, alright? Just so I can figure out how to help you.”

Steve carefully slipped his fingers under the top layer of bandage, searching for an end to unwind. Bucky audibly ground his teeth together, his whole body shrinking away from Steve.

“You alright?” Steve paused to ask.

“I -” Bucky gulped, his face bloodless and chalk-white. “Wh-why’re you… don’t. Don’t take it, no, please, I’m _awake -”_ The desperate word died with a sick noise in the back of his throat. He turned to bury his face in the crook of his elbow resting on the opposite end of the tub, as far away from Steve as he could possibly get.

“Yeah, you’re awake,” Steve repeated, uncomprehending. “I’m right here. You’re okay.”

Steve kept prodding at him, and Bucky let out an unmistakable sob, curling into a ball as he continually tried to pull away.

“Don’t, don’t, just let me _go,”_ Bucky moaned, and Steve’s stomach dropped as he realized, too late, where Bucky’s feverish head was - somewhere far away from the cool water and relative safety of their little bathroom. He quickly let Bucky go.

“Oh god, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Bucky, I thought you were with me. I thought you were okay…”

But Bucky wasn’t listening. His shoulders hitched again, and Steve thought for a second that he might still be crying, but then he let out a painful-sounding gag, and the water Steve had forced into him was coming back up onto the bathroom floor. Bucky’s arching spine was facing Steve, and Steve wanted desperately to reach out to him, to rub his back and hold him until he came back to himself, until he felt okay again - but he forced himself to hold back. His touch wasn’t going to help Bucky. He couldn’t fix this.

“I’m so sorry,” Steve said hollowly as Bucky caught his breath. “I’m sorry I-I can’t help you. Not the way…” _Not the way you’ve always helped me. Not the way I should be able to because for god’s sake you’ve taken care of me my entire life and all I ever wanted was to return the favor._ “...not the way you need. Soon as it’s morning I’m gonna call for a doctor, alright? Is that okay?”

Bucky groaned shakily, then slowly turned back around to face Steve. Barely perceptibly, he nodded.

“I-I didn’t mean to,” he said, voice raw and hoarse from vomiting. “My head keeps getting all… mixed up…”

“‘S ok,” Steve said sadly. “Not your fault. Let’s just go lie down again, alright? You probably just need some rest, and things are gonna get a whole lot clearer.”

But even as Steve supported Bucky back to bed and forced him into clean clothes, even as he burrowed with him under the quilt and added another blanket for good measure, he couldn’t rid himself of a nagging sense of worry, unshakeable and only growing every time Bucky whined quietly in his fitful sleep. Bucky was curled up with his back to Steve, effectively shutting him out, leaving Steve with only the slight up-and-down motion of his ribs as he breathed for company. Steve inched a hand out from where it was tucked beneath the blankets, lingering it barely an inch from the place where Bucky’s bicep was wrapped in the quilt. He couldn’t help but think back to the way he’d traced over the skin beneath with his fingers. The way he half-wished he could do it again, to somehow make all of this okay with the gentlest touch he could muster.

But it wouldn’t help, and he knew it. He left that inch of space between them, drifting in and out of sleep until light started filtering in through the bedroom window and the sounds of Brooklyn waking up for the day drowned out the soft noises of Bucky’s labored breathing. Steve spared one more quick glance at him, pale and small underneath the pile of blankets, before pushing himself to his feet to find reinforcements. He was going to fix this. He had to.

  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags have been updated for this chapter!

The next week, Steve came home from work to find that two letters had been dropped through the mail slot on their front door. He bent down to pick them up, cringing as the motion sent pain shooting through his back. It was always particularly painful at the end of a long shift, a testament to the childhood scoliosis that had never quite straightened itself out, but he did his best to ignore it as he gathered up the envelopes and started flipping through them.

The letter on top appeared to be a bill from the doctor who’d been stopping by intermittently throughout the week. Steve moved to sit at the kitchen table as he tore into it and couldn’t help but wince when he saw the number inside. He’d known it would be high - the last time they’d brought a doctor over for a house call had been during a particularly bad bout of Steve’s pneumonia in ‘39, and even though he’d been laid up for a month afterwards, he still remembered all the extra shifts Bucky had had to take to afford it, the way he came home every day practically bent double with exhaustion, the way he worked until he was so run ragged he ended up almost as sick as Steve. He just hadn’t quite anticipated _how_ high it would be. 

Steve shifted in his chair, trying to find a more comfortable position for his aching back. Facing the prospect of returning that favor Bucky had given him years ago, he genuinely wasn’t sure he could do it. In the moment, though, it had hardly mattered; it had seemed like the only option, the most logical next step in Steve’s mission to get Bucky feeling better at absolutely any cost.

Bucky had been delirious with fever, curled up in as small a ball as he could manage under the blankets of his bed with a towel over the pillow and a bucket within arm’s reach. When Steve brought in the doctor, the mere sight of his white coat left Bucky wide-eyed and panicking, and Steve had to make quick use of the carefully placed bucket when panic manifested in uncontrollable nausea. Bucky brought back up the tiny amount of fluid Steve had managed to force into him and then some, heaving emptily over the edge of the bed while Steve could do nothing more than whisper to him, try to calm him down however he could. Several long minutes passed before Bucky was able to sit up and breathe somewhat evenly again. Even then, Steve had refused to leave his side, clutching his hand and murmuring reassurances as the doctor poked and prodded at his injured left shoulder.

Once the doctor was finally able to get to work, it didn’t take long for him to confirm what Steve already feared; Bucky’s untended injuries had gone infected, leaving him in pain and sick besides. He’d recommended penicillin, and Steve had immediately agreed to pay for it in spite of the amount it would add to an already sure-to-be hefty bill. Even now, staring down the consequences of that desperation, it was hard to regret his decision. Bucky had done the same for him countless times. Hell, even if Bucky _hadn’t_ done the same, Steve wouldn’t regret his choice - over the course of the week, he’d been finding that there was just something so uniquely torturous about seeing Bucky in pain.

Steve turned the bill facedown on the table, vowing to deal with it later, and reached for the other envelope. This one was addressed to Bucky in neat cursive handwriting, and Steve couldn’t help but smile when he noticed the name on the return address - Winifred Barnes. He’d been an honorary member of the Barnes family for as long as he could remember, and he looked forward to hearing from Bucky’s mother almost as much as he would have looked forward to hearing from his own. Still, the letter was addressed to Bucky, and Steve figured it was only fair that Bucky be the one to open it. Leaving the bill on the table, he got up and made his way over to the closed door of Bucky’s room.

“Bucky?” He knocked gently on the door before pushing it open a crack and letting the early-evening sunlight that was streaming into their living area also permeate the small bedroom. He fully expected to see Bucky curled up in bed, as he had been for most of the week since he’d arrived home - or maybe, if he was really lucky, he’d find him sitting propped against the headboard, awake and feeling well enough to talk for at least a few minutes. But Steve stepped through the doorway into an empty room.

“Buck? Are you okay? Where are you?” Steve quickly ducked out of Bucky’s room to cast another glance around the rest of the apartment, for once glad that they were only able to afford such a small place. It, too, seemed empty, and the sight of it had Steve’s heart racing - for Bucky, of course, but also for himself. He’d only just begun to remember what it was like to have someone sharing space with him, to come home every day and know that he wouldn’t have to spend his evenings completely alone.

Steve stood staring into their empty living area from Bucky’s doorway, chest feeling tighter than it had since his last asthma attack, until he saw a shadow move past the window, disrupting the patch of light flooding into the apartment from past the fire escape outside. Breathing a sigh of relief, he rushed over to the window, wasting no time tucking the letter into the pocket of the work apron still tied around his chest so that he could let himself out onto the rickety metal landing.

“Bucky.” It wasn’t a question this time. Steve knew he’d be out there, knew it before he even stepped out himself and caught sight of Bucky sitting with his back against the outer wall of their building and his feet dangling over the street below. It was one of Bucky’s favorite spots; he’d gravitate towards it when he got off work in the summers on days when it was still light out and he had time to grab a beer before heading outside to watch the sunset. Even in the winters, when the short days and inevitably expensive flareups of Steve’s various illnesses kept Bucky working from the dark hours of the morning until the even darker hours of the evening, he’d still sometimes duck outside and bask in the snow before coming back in to teasingly poke Steve with his icy fingers. Finding him out here now was so predictable, so unmistakably _Bucky,_ that Steve found himself smiling a little as he crouched to take a seat beside him.

“Hey,” Steve said, taking in Bucky’s face where the evening light met it. Not for the first time since Bucky’s return, he was struck by how much older his best friend looked now. It wasn’t anything he could put his finger on, really, no visible lines of age or new wrinkles on his face - it was just something about the way his eyes were set, a little more shadowed and sunken than they’d been before the war. It hurt Steve’s heart a little to look at it, that reminder of all the growing up they’d had to do without each other. “What’re you doing out here?”

Bucky shrugged slowly in response, not turning to look at Steve, still gazing out over the busy street beneath them. “Just… just looking,” he said quietly. His voice was still a little gravelly from the week spent being sick as his body fought through the infection in his arm, but it was finally lucid, and the sound of it only widened Steve’s smile. “Always liked the view out here.”

Steve turned so he could see what Bucky was seeing. To a casual observer, the view beyond their apartment was maybe nothing special; a thin alley more often than not packed with honking cars and rows of trash bins close to overflowing, surrounded on all sides by other buildings essentially identical to theirs, crumbling red brick and rusted fire escapes climbing all the way up the sides. But the air was clear up here, as clear as it could ever be in New York City, and if you angled yourself just right you got a perfect view of the sun as it set between the buildings a few blocks over.

“Yeah,” Steve said, tilting his head so the colors of the sunset were in full view. “I know what you mean.”

Bucky nodded, eyes still fixated on a point somewhere above the neighboring building’s roof. “It feels... weird. Being back, I mean.”

Steve smiled sadly at him. “Weird how?”

“I dunno,” Bucky sighed. “I mean, my whole life, New York was all I ever knew, right? And then it was all I thought about, when - when I -” Bucky’s voice stumbled to a halt, his shoulders shrinking in on themselves a little. Almost unconsciously, he wrapped his right arm across his chest, fingers curling against the empty space at his left side before his arm slid back down to rest in his lap.

“When you what, Buck?” Steve forced himself to ask.

Bucky shook his head quickly, dropping his gaze from the skyline to his knees, which Steve realized were trembling a little. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I just - for a little while there, I wasn’t sure I’d ever see it again, is all. But now I’m here, and it feels… different. Dunno how to explain it, really. A lot’s just… changed.”

Steve couldn’t help but agree. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been thinking it, hadn’t thought it every time he’d laid eyes on Bucky this week only to find some strange and hollowed-out creature staring back at him. But he couldn’t say that, not when Bucky had just gotten back on his feet, not when he still looked so fragile that Steve was terrified of making the wrong move and accidentally sending him falling apart again.

So he said, “I know. It has. But we’re both still here, right? That’s gotta at least count for something.”

Bucky finally looked at him then, and the light of the setting sun caught his eyes just right, making them shine like he was looking at something really special. Steve had to remind himself how to breathe. 

“Yeah. We are.” He gave Steve a long look, like there was something else he wanted to say but couldn’t quite find the words. “I just - I wanted to thank you, I guess,” he managed after a moment. “For taking care of me. Know I’ve been in rough shape. You didn’t have to do all that for me.”

Steve couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Buck, I told you a hundred times not to worry about it. I always wanna be there for you, y’know? I -”

He made himself stop before words could keep spilling out, faster than his brain had time to censor them. He wasn’t sure what he’d been about to say, but he had a feeling it ran deeper than simple reassurances, deep enough to leave him taken aback even though he wasn’t quite sure what the sentiment was. 

“I don’t mind,” he finished lamely. “I’ve been looking after myself these past few years. No reason thinking I can’t help look after you sometimes, too.”

Bucky’s face fell slightly before smoothing over again. “Yeah. Looks like you’ve been doing alright for yourself.” His gaze, undercut by something strangely mournful, almost envious, seemed stuck on Steve's work apron. 

“‘Course I am,” Steve said, a little confused by the sadness lingering in Bucky’s face. “I can take care of myself, you know. Not just gonna fall apart if someone breathes on me wrong.”

Bucky nodded, but didn’t reply. There had been a time when that prolonged silence would have annoyed Steve, but there was something still so oddly sad in Bucky’s face that he decided not to push it.

After a moment, though, Bucky seemed to pull himself together. He put on a smile - one of the painfully false ones he always mustered when he was trying to put on a brave face, stretched wide and just a little too thin. “Hey, what’s that? Got a secret pen pal you’re not telling me about?”

Steve turned to see Bucky staring meaningfully down at the envelope he’d left sticking out of the pocket of his apron. He quickly drew it out and handed it over, grateful in spite of himself for the change of course.

“No, you jerk. That’s for you. Found it on the way in, was looking for you so I could give it to you.”

“Huh.” Bucky’s eyes traced over the writing on the front of the envelope, lingering on the Indiana return address. He didn’t open it, just kept turning it over in his hand, contemplating. “Funny, isn’t it? Always thought we’d be the ones to move away. Used to talk about it all the time, taking you somewhere where there’s sun and clean air.”

Steve nodded in agreement. Privately, though, he thought Bucky might be the one who needed some sunlight and fresh air now. The darker the evening got, the worse he looked, pale and still unmistakably sick despite his every effort to appear otherwise.

“New York is home though, right?” Steve tried, hoping to bring some life back into that tired face. “I mean, where else are you gonna get a view like this?”

He expected agreement - Bucky _loved_ New York, had loved his old job and nights out dancing and the all-too-ordinary view from their corner of the fire escape. But all he got in response was a shrug.

“Do they know?” Bucky asked softly, running his thumb over the handwriting on the front of the envelope. “About…” 

He pressed his lips together, seemingly unable to finish the thought, but Steve saw the way his eyes unconsciously flicked towards his stump shoulder and back again. It didn’t take much to fill in the gaps.

“Yeah. Yeah, I let ‘em know,” Steve said. “All the telegrams about you got sent here for some reason, so I passed them on, soon as I read them. Guess they messed up their records, still thought your family lived here.”

Bucky shook his head slightly, still staring down at the letter in his lap. “Wasn’t a mistake.”

He’d spoken so quietly Steve almost thought he misheard him. “What?”

“The, uh. The telegrams. Wasn’t a mistake they got sent here instead of Indiana. I didn’t exactly tell them my family moved addresses.” Bucky looked away from the letter and found Steve’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I just, I thought, if anything happened to me… I didn’t want you to have to wait around wondering about it. Didn’t want you to never find out, think I just up and left you or something. Or - or maybe I just - I didn’t want you to forget about me. I dunno.”

Bucky’s voice fractured a little over the last few words. He was looking at Steve with a shining earnestness, like there was something he wasn’t quite saying but that he was dying for Steve to understand nonetheless. “Thought about you all the time when I was over there. Worried about you, sometimes, figured you must be getting into tons of trouble without me here to pull you out of it. Mostly… mostly just thought about you, though. Every time things got…” he took a deep breath. “Every time things got bad, it was always you I thought about. Every time.”

Steve suddenly had to swallow past a lump in his throat. “Buck,” he managed. “You gotta know I’d never just - forget about you. Don’t even think I could if I tried. You mean too much to me for that. Always have.”

Bucky smiled softly at him then. Not one of those wide, fake ones - a real one, the kind that never failed to send Steve’s heart swelling with a fondness so deep he could hardly comprehend it. And maybe the words hadn’t been exactly the ones Steve had wanted to say, maybe they didn’t quite capture the storm of feelings too strong for definition floating around in his chest - but he’d made Bucky smile, and that in itself felt like enough.

“C’mon,” Steve said after a second, after he’d stared at that smile for so long his chest was starting to physically ache. He wasn’t sure how long he could sit there gazing at Bucky’s face before all those swirling feelings inside him nudged him into doing something he might regret. 

“It’s a Friday night. Let’s do something.”

Bucky looked a little taken aback, so Steve softened his suggestion a little. “Nothing serious. Just a walk or something. We could… head down to the theater, see what movies are playing? Or check out Rita’s diner, see if they’re serving milkshakes?” He made the last suggestion with a conspiratorial glint in his eye, having known Bucky’s kryptonite about as long as he’d known Bucky himself. He had a notorious sweet tooth, and Steve had learned early on that if he ever wanted Bucky to do something, all he needed to do was literally sweeten the pot and Bucky was toast.

Bucky hesitated for a moment, and Steve’s stomach dropped, wondering if maybe, somehow, the war had taken this from Bucky too. But then Bucky seemed to pull himself together and looked at him with eyes that were almost as mischievous as his own. “I dunno, Stevie, are you buying?”

Steve snorted. “‘Course I am. Why d’you think I even bothered getting a job if not to ply you with milkshakes?”

“Well, in that case, I’m in. What are we waiting for?”

And Steve laughed, really laughed in a way he didn’t think he had since before Bucky had left for the war. Maybe Bucky still looked a little guarded, a little sad in some way that Steve couldn't quite define as he looked down at the letter from his mother and buried it, still unopened, in his pocket - but there was just something special about this, the easy pleasure of of living and doing and _being_ together simply because it felt so much better, so much more right than being apart. This, Steve thought, might be the best feeling in the world.

* * *

In the end, they made it all of three blocks.

Steve knew something was wrong the moment they stepped out onto the busy street in front of their apartment. Bucky had been holding himself together, talking and laughing and seeming almost happy as they made their way down the stairs, but that all changed once the relative quiet of the inside of their building was replaced by the chaotic world of honking cars and hurried pedestrians outside. When the noise and claustrophobic press of the darkening New York streets hit them full force, Bucky immediately tensed up, his muscles wound so tight Steve could see him shaking out of the corner of his eye. 

“You alright?” Steve murmured as they pointed their feet in the direction of the diner. He didn’t want to make a scene, didn’t want to make Bucky feel any more exposed than he already surely felt, but something in Bucky’s posture, rigid to the point of breaking, wasn’t boding well.

Bucky nodded jerkily. “Yeah, I’m -”

A car horn blared, and Bucky flinched with his entire body, bringing his arm up to cover his head as though he was bracing for impact. 

“Buck.” Steve cast a nervous glance around at the people hurrying past them, a few of whom didn’t bother to hide their disapproving looks at the two of them for stopping in the middle of the busy, rush-hour sidewalk. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

Bucky nodded. His face was ghostly white, and sweat had broken out on his upper lip. “I’m fine. Sorry. Let’s - let’s go.”

Against his better judgement, Steve reluctantly agreed. As they pressed on, he hovered as near to Bucky as he could, imagining that he could shield Bucky from at least some of the overwhelming noise and traffic with his own body.

It wasn’t enough, though - nothing about him ever seemed to be enough, Steve thought bitterly. Bucky was clearly on high alert, the tension in his limbs only coiling tighter the further they got from their apartment. Every time they passed someone on the sidewalk, he pressed himself a little closer to Steve, repeating the gesture until they were practically glued together at the arm. Their closeness didn’t give him a lot of room to maneuver, and he paid the price when a high-heeled woman squeezed past his other side, brushing against him as she went. Bucky went rigid, freezing up with his eyes wide and his face rapidly draining of blood. He stopped just in time for a burly man following a little too close behind them to collide with him full-force.

“Hey! Watch it!” The man spun around to yell at them before hurrying on his way. Bucky didn’t even seem to hear him - physically, he was right next to Steve, but his eyes were far away, lost somewhere Steve couldn’t follow. 

“Bucky. Hey, Buck. Where are you? Can you - can you look at me?”

Bucky just stood there, stuck in that thousand-yard stare. Slowly, his chest began to heave.

“Okay,” Steve said worriedly, eyeing the still-busy street around them. “It’s fine. You’re fine. We just gotta move. Let’s go this way, alright?”

Steve cautiously took Bucky’s arm, expecting resistance, but Bucky barely even reacted. He at least forced his feet to cooperate and stumbled along as Steve pulled him into an alleyway just off the busy sidewalk. 

“Bucky? Can you hear me?” Steve helped Bucky lean up against the wall of the alley. Bucky’s breathing was harsh and shallow, and his eyes still seemed distant and lost in fog. 

“You gotta breathe, pal.” Steve pressed his hand against Bucky’s chest in the vague hope that it might ground him, might bring him back to reality. He could feel Bucky’s heartbeat through his shirt, a rapid, fluttering rhythm like a caged animal scrabbling for escape. Steve increased the pressure of his hand slightly, as though holding Bucky down might keep him from flying apart.

“There’s - there’s too many of them,” Bucky’s muttered, the words punctuated by desperate, shallow heaves for air. “They’re hiding. In the snow. We gotta - we gotta move, they’re gonna -”

 _“Bucky.”_ Steve guided Bucky’s face down so that he could look him in the eye. “You’re safe. I-I don’t know where your head’s at, but you’re with me. I promise.”

Bucky blinked at him, confusion showing in his eyes as he clearly tried to separate Steve’s face from whatever memory he was trapped in. “They’re gonna take me and I can’t - please, god, I _can’t_ \- I can’t go back -”

“No no no. It’s fine. Nothing’s gonna happen to you. Not while I’m here, alright?”

Steve watched helplessly as tears began welling up in Bucky’s eyes. His breath was still coming too fast, but the panicked confusion in his face was giving way to something closer to desperation. He reached out to Steve, finding his waist and clutching a fistful of his shirt in his shaking hand.

“Yeah,” Steve murmured, taking the gesture as an invitation to step closer. He slipped his free hand behind Bucky’s back, the other still offering what he hoped was comforting pressure against Bucky’s chest. “I’ve got you, Buck. I’ve got you.”

They stood there for a few long minutes, trembling against each other. Bucky kept his head bowed while he blinked away tears and took deep, shaky breaths, his posture so guarded that Steve might not have known he was falling apart if it weren’t for the desperate, shaking hand still clinging to his shirt for dear life. 

“Are you back with me?” Steve asked tentatively, once Bucky seemed able to fill his lungs without too much of a fight. Bucky grunted, finally prying his hand loose from Steve in order to wipe his eyes, then to rub at his forehead like it hurt. 

“Buck? Can you tell me where you are?”

Bucky sighed quietly. “I’m fine. I-I’m in New York. I’m fine.”

“Yeah. You’re okay.” Steve gently ran his hand back and forth across Bucky’s back.

“Can - can we go home?”

Steve did his best to put on a smile. “‘Course, Buck. Whatever you need. Are you… do you think you’re gonna be okay to walk?”

Bucky nodded with grim determination, but Steve could see a tense muscle jumping at his temple, the hypervigilance in his eyes and the way his fist was clenched like he was gearing up for a fight. 

He could hardly stand it. This was Bucky, his best friend, run ragged and clearly fighting with every ounce of strength he had just to keep himself from falling apart. Steve was struck, not for the first time, by the sheer unfairness of it all. Ever since Bucky’s draft notice had shown up on their doorstep, Steve had seethed about it, how unfair it was that Bucky was going off to fight what he thought was the good fight while he was stuck at home doing nothing. But that sentiment was quickly dissipating; now, it just seemed so unfair that Bucky, his Bucky, was having to fight this fight at all.

Before they moved to duck out of the alley and start the walk home, some part of Steve decided he couldn’t stand it anymore. He used the hand still wrapped around Bucky’s back to pull him closer, winding his other arm around him to wrap him in a quick, definitive hug. He wasn’t sure why, exactly - in that moment, Steve had just wanted nothing more than to hold him. Bucky tensed up a little when he moved, and Steve worried for a moment that he’d made a terrible call. But then, so quickly he almost missed it, Bucky reached up to hug him back.

They both broke away too quickly, like neither of them wanted to show the weakness of being the last one left clinging to the other. Steve still felt the absence, though, once Bucky was no longer in his arms. He wondered briefly if Bucky felt the same - but Bucky’s face was shuttered again, closed-off, and Steve couldn’t bring himself to say anything. 

They set off for the apartment in silence.

* * *

“Do you want dinner? I can make something, I don’t mind.”

“No.”

“Are you sure? You need to eat.”

“No, Steve.”

“Can I just -”

“Please.” Bucky stood in the doorway to his room, dark and empty against the soft light of their living room. He gave Steve a long look, one that told him as clearly as anything could that the conversation was over.

“Okay,” Steve said softly. Bucky stepped into his room, and the door clicked shut. 

“Buck?” Steve knocked at his door later that night. “I’m gonna leave a plate for you, alright?”

“Okay.” Bucky’s voice sounded raw, muffled. Steve set a plate of food down in front of his closed door and beat a reluctant retreat.

Steve dreamed about Bucky.

It was deathly cold, snowing. The atmosphere felt just the way Steve had imagined it when he looked at newspaper photos of troops near the German border with their shoulders bent against the cold, helmets painted white to blend in with the rising snow. The setting was all wrong, though. Instead of some bombed-out building in Europe, he was in their apartment, staring at the frosted-over window overlooking the fire escape. Bucky sat outside, barely more than a silhouette through the foggy glass. Steve tried to speak, tried to call out to him, to get him to come in. The shadowy figure outside didn’t respond, though, just kept his back turned and his eyes on the slowly falling snow. 

Steve was abruptly pulled from the dream in the middle of the night. He’d awoken to muffled footsteps in the hallway, to a body stumbling into the wall before righting itself and continuing on in the direction of the bathroom. 

“Bucky?” Still groggy, Steve did his best to shake himself awake as he rolled out of bed and made his way down the hallway, sidestepping the plate still sitting outside Bucky’s door. The bathroom door was closed, but Steve could hear noises coming from inside. His ears weren’t quite good enough to tell whether they were hiccups or tiny, barely suppressed sobs.

“What’s going on?” Steve asked through the closed door. He didn’t get a response. Inside, the hiccups were morphing into retches, and Steve heard liquid splashing against water. He winced. 

“It’s alright, Buck.” He leaned into the door, pressing against it with his forehead, then with the flat of his palm, wanting nothing more than for it to swing open under his touch - but it stayed locked tight. “I’m here.”

Something shifted inside the bathroom, and Steve hurriedly stepped back, ready to give Bucky space once he opened the door. 

“Steve…”

Instead of swinging open, the door rattled a little, like someone had leaned against it. Steve could hear Bucky using it to support himself as he slid down to sit on the floor.

“Yep. Right here.” Steve cautiously stepped closer. He could see the shadow marking the place where Bucky was sitting, blocking the light spilling out from the crack under the door. Slowly, he got to his knees, then maneuvered himself so he was sitting with his back to the door, mere inches from where Bucky’s back was resting against the other side. “I know you’re still not feeling good. Wanna tell me what’s going on?”

Bucky cleared his throat. “Nothing. Just - nightmare. Real bad.”

Steve sighed, tilting his head back to rest against the door. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

Even through the door, he could hear the way his question made Bucky’s breath catch in his throat. 

“I don’t...” Bucky said shakily. “I don't know if I can.”

Steve reminded himself to be patient. It took a herculean effort, but he did it. “That’s okay,” he whispered. “I wanna help you, Buck. I just…” He took a deep breath. “I only wish I knew how.”

Bucky didn’t say anything. In the resounding silence, Steve felt his chest getting tight. Here he was, only inches from the person he knew best in the world - so why did he feel so alone?

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve noticed a slight shift of movement. He looked down to see Bucky’s hand reaching under the door, fingers just barely curling towards him. Taking a deep breath, he extended his hand in return, covering Bucky’s fingers with his own - then slowly, carefully intertwining them. Bucky gently squeezed his hand.

 _I love you, Buck._ The thought sprang to Steve’s mind, fully formed. It was on the tip of his tongue before he even had time to process it, and it took every ounce of his willpower to hold it in. _I love you._

Steve didn’t know, really, where it came from. It almost didn’t make sense. Nothing seemed to, anymore; around them, New York was still moving on without them, too fast for either of them to keep up. There was a war happening a world away, though it still seemed to loom over them no matter how many miles they were from the actual front. This, though - the two of them sitting here together - felt inevitable. Like everything Steve had ever felt for Bucky, every moment he’d spent worried for him during his deployment, every desperate way he’d tried to heal him afterwards, finally had a name. Steve still didn’t understand it, still couldn’t quite comprehend just how deep those feelings ran - but the longer he reveled in it, the more he realized that maybe it did make sense. Maybe it was the only thing that did anymore.

Steve held onto Bucky, and Bucky held onto Steve, and they waited for morning together.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the late update!! I’m also sorry in advance if there’s a bit of a wait for the next chapter- I’m working on a pretty substantial writing project for school and it’s really cutting down on my writing-for-fun time :P I’m still pretty attached to this one though, and as long as anyone still wants more I’m definitely committed to finishing!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I'm back! Thanks so much to everyone who's still here!!
> 
> This chapter was really just supposed to be an interlude, but I think it kind of passed that point in length, so... now it's whatever this is, I guess:)

In hindsight, Steve should have known. 

His entire life revolved around Bucky. They were a package deal and always had been, whether they were on the elementary school playground or out at the dance halls or wandering through the Stark expo or holed up in their little apartment together. If Steve was really honest with himself, he might admit that most of his fruitless attempts at enlistment had been less about actually getting to serve and more about finding a way to follow Bucky wherever he went, to keep him close just the way he always had been. It was everywhere, really, the incriminating evidence of just how deep Steve’s feelings ran - even his sketchbook, a visual chronicle of everything taking up space in his mind, was filled to the brim with pictures of Bucky. 

He’d never thought much of it before. Between their childhoods and now, Bucky’s face was probably the one he’d seen the most. It only made sense that, with all that exposure, Bucky’s face would start bleeding into his art. But paging through the little leather-bound book now, with all these new and terrifying feelings running through him, Steve couldn’t help but find it striking, almost scary. For every half-rendered landscape or hurried figure drawing, there was at least one portrait - and of all the portraits scattered throughout the book, Steve would be hard-pressed to find one that didn’t at least resemble Bucky.

It was a cold evening in late February, and Steve, having just finished a double shift at the grocer’s, was perched at the kitchen table, scanning over the various versions of Bucky taking up residence in his sketchbook. He was hoping to get some drawing done before the exhaustion of the day hit him full force and he’d need to crawl into bed, but keeping himself awake was proving difficult - and the previous night’s events certainly weren’t helping.

He’d woken up in the early hours of the morning to the sounds of real, honest-to-god screaming. He’d sat bolt upright, fists clenched in momentary readiness to fight, before he’d realized the sounds were coming from Bucky’s room. It was hardly the first time it had happened - since that first night the two of them had spent clinging to each other through the bathroom door, the nightmares had established themselves as near-nightly occurrences - but it was still jarring. No matter how often it happened, Steve didn’t think he’d ever get used to hearing Bucky screaming like he might be dying and not being able to do a single thing about it. 

He’d tried, the first couple of times it had happened, had gone and knocked on Bucky’s door or the door of the bathroom, sometimes offering water or a cool cloth, sometimes offering nothing more than company. But more often than not Bucky made it clear that he didn’t want the help, sometimes with clipped words, sometimes with silence punctuated by the little hitches of breath that meant he was crying and didn’t want anyone to know. So Steve mostly left him alone now. But that didn’t mean he felt good about it, and it didn’t mean he slept any easier.

And that was the problem, really - Bucky was living right alongside him, never more than a few feet away, but he still felt so distant, always hovering somewhere just slightly out of Steve’s reach. So even with his brain conjuring up dangerous thoughts like _I think maybe I love you_ , Steve couldn’t begin to puzzle through it all, to stare into the depths of his emotions and figure out exactly what they meant. For that, he’d need Bucky, and Bucky seemed hell-bent on shutting him - and everyone else, for that matter - out.

Steve sighed, staring across the kitchen table at Bucky’s seat on the other side. It was empty, of course - it always seemed to be empty lately, with Bucky spending most of his time behind the locked door of his room. The only thing keeping Steve company at the table was the small pile of mail that had accumulated on Bucky’s side: three envelopes, all from Indiana, all unopened. Some small part of Steve almost felt gratified that he at least wasn’t the only one Bucky was ignoring, but mostly the sight of those unopened envelopes only served to make him sadder.

Steve hovered his pencil over the pages of his sketchbook, the pile of letters proclaiming to be from Winifred Barnes in full view. Bucky’s mother’s name, her familiar handwriting, had Steve lost in nostalgia for his and Bucky’s shared childhood, when their togetherness had simply been a given. He thought wistfully of sleepovers on the floor of the Barnes family living room, of the Sunday dinners spent together that preceded them. Of the wide, gap-toothed grin Bucky would always flash his mother as he lied about him and Steve having washed up before coming to the table.

Steve’s pencil started moving, practically of its own accord, until another version of Bucky materialized on the page. It was him at probably eight, his wide grin proudly showcasing a missing front tooth. Steve paid particular attention to getting that smile down just right. It didn’t matter whether Bucky himself was an ocean away or simply sealed off behind a locked door. Steve still knew exactly what his smile looked like.

* * *

Spring came especially slowly that year. The cold persisted all the way into March, and Steve felt bent under its weight, exhausted and constantly on the edge of a nasty cough, his fingers always stiff and verging on blue. 

But he was willing to grin and bear it, the work and the cold and all the hardship that came with it, because the slow onset of spring brought with it something else. As the weather grew gradually warmer, Bucky was gradually coming back to him.

It started with him leaving the door of his room open a crack when he retreated there after breakfast in the mornings. Then it transitioned to him retreating there less and less often, electing to spend more time at the table, in the living room, sitting out on the fire escape.

Even better, he’d started smiling again.

They weren’t real smiles exactly - they were tight, pinched, never quite meeting his eyes. But they were, undeniably, smiles, and something about them felt like progress. 

Bucky’s birthday happened to coincide with one of the first truly nice days of spring. When Steve woke up that day to find that the sunlight streaming in through the windows actually felt warm, he wanted to celebrate for more reasons than one.

“Happy birthday, Buck,” he said when Bucky came into the kitchen around midmorning. Steve’s heart sank when he laid eyes on him - he looked like hell, his tired eyes rimmed with red and at least three days’ worth of stubble on his face. But he managed a smile, albeit a small and wavering one, and the tight worry in Steve’s chest loosened its hold a little.

“Wish we could do something, make it more special,” Steve said, smiling apologetically as he poured them mugs of bitter, watered-down coffee. Between Bucky’s injury and how jumpy he still got every time he tried to leave the apartment, he hadn’t had much luck finding work, so Steve’s meager income had to suffice for the both of them, leaving them pretty short on options for entertainment. It wasn’t easy - even the coffee Steve was currently pouring constituted a luxury at this point - but Steve kept telling himself they’d be fine. After all, they’d made it through the entire Depression and hardly ever had more than one income between the two of them. Back then it had always been Bucky’s - it was only fair that it ought to be Steve’s now. 

Bucky just shrugged, nursing his coffee. The lines of exhaustion in his face seemed especially pronounced today, and he let his eyes fall closed as he inhaled the steam coming off of his drink. When he blinked and saw Steve watching him, though, he forced himself to stand up a little straighter, forced a smile onto his face that to a casual observer would almost look believable. He’d always been good at putting on a brave face - but Steve had always been good at seeing through those faces. It was painfully obvious to Steve just how hard Bucky was trying now, but still, he’d started _trying,_ and that in itself felt momentous.

“We don’t gotta do anything,” Bucky said, his voice a little rough but his painted smile staying intact. “Really. Still bound to be the best birthday I’ve had in a while.”

It wasn’t really funny, the casual reference to everything he’d gone through, everything he still staunchly refused to tell Steve about - but Bucky sounded so much like his old self in that moment that Steve couldn’t help but grin. Things weren’t perfect, but Bucky was trying, and so was he. Maybe one of these days they would really be okay.

It was a rare day off work for Steve. He spent it sitting on one corner of the couch with his sketchbook, and it was a testament to just how much Bucky was trying that he didn’t retreat back to his room after breakfast, but instead curled up on the opposite end of the sofa, a scant few feet away from Steve. There was warm sun pouring in from the windows, and the radio was playing something slow, and it didn’t take long for Bucky’s eyes to fall closed and his breath to turn long and deep with sleep. 

Some combination of the sleepy calm smoothing over his face and the way he was sitting, burrowed against the arm of the couch with his knees pulled halfway up to his chest, made him look younger - or, at least, it erased the all the superficial markers of age he’d been sporting since he came home. Steve, his sketchbook already out and draped over his lap, couldn’t have kept from drawing him if he’d tried.

What materialized was Bucky as a teenager, his hair meticulously arranged in the slicked-back style he wore when they went out, the one he’d been so convinced made him look cool. His face was smooth, free of the new lines and shadows he’d come home with, and his smile was bright and just a little cocky. Steve looked over at the real Bucky’s face periodically as he drew, even though he didn’t need to, even though he had every line and shape of it already down by heart. The more he looked between them, the more he could imagine that the living, breathing Bucky in front of him still smiled like that. 

But even if none of his smiles felt real these days, Bucky was here, warm and present and for once actually getting some _rest,_ and on that sunny afternoon Steve loved him so intensely it was hard to breathe. 

He didn’t say anything - _couldn’t_ say anything, didn’t even know how to begin to verbalize the storm of feelings swirling inside him. So he just sat and relished the momentary peace. Somewhere between the sunlight and the music and _Bucky_ right beside him, Steve found himself happier than he ever thought he could be.

* * *

Steve had thought it meant progress - Bucky willingly spending time with him, Bucky curling up on the couch and napping like a cat in a sunbeam, Bucky smiling that particular smile of his that meant things weren’t really okay but still seemed to hint that, soon, they might be. But as March crept on and that forced smile appeared more strained by the day, Steve was forced to concede that maybe the return of Bucky’s smile wasn’t quite the good omen he’d hoped it to be.

Because despite all those smiles, all those times he assured Steve that he was _fine, Stevie, really,_ Bucky was still a brick wall. He had nightmares. He stared into space, got lost inside his head. He held himself tense and stiff like he was in pain more often than not. And every time Steve tried to talk to him, to do anything at all about it, he’d shut down.

“Come on, Bucky, just _talk_ to me. Tell me what’s going on.” 

Steve had come home from work to find Bucky sitting rigid and uncomfortable on the couch. At first he’d been thrilled to see him, thinking that this was shaping up to be one of those treasured evenings when they shared space, made dinner together and then retreated to the living room where Steve pulled out his sketchbook and Bucky made joking comments about his art as he drew. But it quickly became clear that something was wrong; Bucky’s skin was shiny with clammy sweat, and he was holding himself the tense, careful way that Steve had learned meant something hurt. Now Steve was desperately trying to figure out what, and Bucky seemed equally committed to not letting him. 

“I told you,” Bucky managed past a smile that looked far more like a grimace. “‘M fine. Just - just tired.”

Steve moved to sit on the couch beside Bucky, but as he approached, Bucky shrank in on himself, swallowing hard and making an aborted grab for his left shoulder with his hand. The gesture was clear; it meant pain, the pain that inexplicably flared up in Bucky’s shoulder from time to time despite the fact that his injuries had been healed for weeks. Once he’d finally been able to eat, the strange bruises littering Bucky’s body had faded quickly, and the bandage had come off his stump arm soon after, but it hadn’t taken Steve long to discern from Bucky’s frequent grimaces and stiff body language that the area around his former injury still bothered him.

Steve held himself back from sitting down next to Bucky, not wanting to jostle the couch cushions and hurt Bucky further, but he couldn’t keep from narrowing his eyes. “Bullshit, you’re fine.”

Bucky tensed his jaw, his smile slipping as he glared at Steve in turn.

“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” Steve pressed.

“Fuck, Steve. I don’t _know._ ” Bucky bit out. “How am I supposed to know? I didn’t fucking ask for this, I don’t -” he cut himself off with a nauseous gulp, and had to stop arguing with Steve in favor of tilting his head back and resting it against the couch cushions with his eyes squeezed shut. Steve’s heart sank.

“Okay,” Steve said as placatingly as he could manage through his own frustration. “Can I at least do anything?” He hated seeing Bucky like this, rough and angry and wound up tight with pain - not least because it made the storm of deep, insistent feelings in his chest bubble to the surface, where they were that much harder to ignore. 

Steve half-reached out to Bucky again, not even knowing what he’d do when they made contact, just wanting to find some way to bridge what felt like a swiftly widening gap between them. Bucky didn’t give him the chance - he jerked away, burying himself further in the corner of the couch.

“Dammit. Don’t - don’t touch me.” Bucky had gone pale, and his breathing was shallow and labored, making him appear hardly a moment from either getting sick or passing out. But he said, “Don’t need anything. I’m fine.”

“Fine.” Steve stepped back. No matter how much he wanted to stay and find some way to fix this, if Bucky didn’t want him around, he’d leave. 

Steve turned back to Bucky once before leaving the room. “Dunno what you’re trying to prove,” he hissed under his breath. Bucky, sweaty and trembling with his face contorted in pain, didn’t give any indication that he’d heard. Steve sighed, defeated. Though it was usually Bucky, tonight Steve was the one to retreat to his room alone.

Under the glow of orange streetlight coming through his bedroom window, Steve pulled out his sketchbook, halfheartedly skimming through it. His heart twisted a little to look at all the pictures he’d drawn of Bucky - young, carefree, truly smiling, so different from the reality awaiting him outside his bedroom door. He rolled a pencil between his finger and thumb, trying to bring himself to create another one, another genuinely happy memory, but he couldn’t make one materialize. 

When he finally put the pencil to paper, he ended up laying out the familiar shapes of Bucky before he even fully realized what he was doing. It was Bucky as he had been on his birthday, his face still worn and tired but for once smoothed over in sleep. As Bucky’s features materialized on the page, Steve tried adding in a few extra lines, an upward curve of his mouth that might almost count as a smile. After staring at it for a minute and trying to make it work, though, he flipped the pencil around to erase it. It looked so forced that even Steve couldn’t convince himself it was genuine. He settled on a neutral expression, not quite happy, but not pained either - the best he could hope for, most days.

Steve fell asleep with the sketchbook still spread out on the pillow beside him, so full of love and hurt that he could hardly tell the difference anymore.

* * *

Bucky emerged from his room most mornings with dark circles under his eyes and a tremor running down his arm.

“I’m fine,” he said, and smiled. 

Bucky stepped out of the apartment occasionally, sometimes heading to some job interview or another, sometimes just making a run to the store on the corner. He’d come back empty-handed and pale, his eyes a little foggy.

“I’m fine,” he insisted when Steve asked, pulling on a half-smile that didn’t meet his still-distant eyes.

“Jeez, Buck,” Steve said tersely one morning in early April, bending down to scoop up the mail that had just been dropped under their door. “You ever going to write your Ma back?” He tossed the letters down on the kitchen table, one from Bucky’s mother sitting on the top of the pile. There were five of them now, permanently residing on the dining table and collecting dust. “Seems like she might be worried about you, y’know, having not heard from you in months and all…”

Bucky flinched a little, but looked up from where he was seated at the table to give Steve one of those infuriating tight smiles. “I will. I’ll get to it. It’s fine.” 

Steve sucked in a breath, a frustrated remark on the tip of his tongue. It took every ounce of his swiftly draining patience to hold it back. “Fine. If you say so,” he said, knowing full well the letters wouldn’t be opened anytime soon.

Steve went to work early, stayed late for the extra hours’ pay. Between the long hours and the intermittent nights spent awake listening to nightmares through the walls, between the conflicting emptiness and sparks of frustration he felt every time he looked into Bucky’s face only to be met with one of those flat smiles and hear those blank insistences of ‘I’m fine,’ Steve felt like he hardly had a moment to breathe. When he finally found a free evening to pull out his sketchbook again, he hardly knew what to do with it anymore. 

His fingers itched to draw Bucky again, to add another version of his smile to the pages - but he couldn’t bring himself to actually do it. Even though he knew the shape of it by heart, the smile Bucky wore nowadays felt so empty that it seemed hardly worth chronicling.

Steve ended up closing the book without making a single mark. It felt wrong to leave it behind, sitting on his nightstand collecting dust, but he did his best not to dwell on it. As Bucky always said - and as Steve kept trying to believe, like maybe believing would make it true - it was fine. He was fine. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Sorry to leave off on that note, but I'm hoping to have the next actual chapter up in a reasonable-ish amount of time!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alcohol cw for this chapter!

As the days wore on, Steve and Bucky were both becoming experts at pretending. 

Bucky’s brave face and flat smile were becoming so commonplace that Steve was almost starting to buy into them. If he just squinted, things almost looked normal - and he certainly preferred to, the alternative being having to confront the same brave face and flat smile he’d been putting on in turn.

Because it was _lonely_ living alongside this parody of Bucky, so plainly burying everything real beneath layers and layers of empty smiles - but two could play at that game. Steve could pretend just as well that the isolation didn’t bother him, that everything really was fine.

He was surviving well enough, at least, until one evening in the middle of April, when something in that well-worn routine of denial seemed to shift. Steve was curled up on the sofa in the living room, engaged in an unofficial staring contest with the still-closed sketchbook now sitting on the coffee table, when the sound of Bucky’s bedroom door opening interrupted him. He looked up to find Bucky standing at the end of the sofa, shifting from foot to foot and practically radiating nervous energy. 

“Hey,” Bucky said, the nonchalance of his voice at odds with his anxious posture. “What’re you up to?”

Steve looked pointedly to the closed sketchbook and back up again. “Not much. What’s going on?”

“I was - well, I was thinking, I’ve been back long enough now. No reason for me to stay cooped up in here forever. We oughta go do something, y’know? Like we used to.”

Steve was used to Bucky relying on nothing more than empty assurances to communicate just how well he was dealing with his return to civilian life. This - the suggestion that they actually go and do something, make good on all those assurances - was markedly new.

Steve took a moment to look Bucky up and down. Despite all his insistences to the contrary, the past few months hadn’t been kind to him, and Steve hardly knew what to make of it all. When Bucky wasn’t withdrawn and silent, he was jumpy and on edge, and leaving the apartment had proven to only ever make whatever state he was in worse.

But Bucky’s mood now didn’t seem to fit into either of the usual categories. Instead of seeming spooked or sad, he appeared wired with energy, like he was set to vibrate straight out of his skin. The sheer newness of it all had Steve too curious to push back on his suggestion.

“What did you have in mind?” he asked.

Bucky shrugged, aiming for casual, but the motion came off jerky and unnatural. “Figured we could - go dancing, or something. Always used to love that. Y’know. Before.”

Steve bit his lip, running his eyes over Bucky again, watching him shift where he stood and compulsively clench and unclench his fist at his side. “Are you sure you’re… up for that?” 

“‘Course I am.” There was that infuriating smile again. “Said I wanted to go out, didn’t I?”

Steve sighed, pulling on a smile to match. “Yeah. Yeah, you did.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows, looking Steve over. “You sure _you’re_ up for it? No offense, pal, but you look beat. If you’re not feeling good, we don’t gotta -”

“No, it’s fine,” Steve said quickly, sitting up a little straighter on the couch. Sure, he was exhausted - picking up the slack left by Bucky’s lack of income still had him working far more than he ever had before, far more than his body wanted to handle - but this wasn’t about him. Bucky wanted to go out. It had to mean things were improving. It had to mean progress. And who would Steve be to deprive him of the opportunity to get better?

“Alright. So… dancing? You’re sure?”

“Yep,” Bucky said. “Was thinking dancing and drinks, just like we used to do. No point living in New York if we don’t take advantage of it, right?”

Steve shook his head, amused in spite of himself. “Right. Used to tell me that every weekend before you dragged me off on some godforsaken double date with a girl who wouldn’t even look twice at me. Some advantage that is.” Despite the more logical portion of his mind telling him that maybe going out and putting their fragile act of normalcy at risk wasn’t the best idea, he couldn't bring himself to say no, or keep himself from smiling. With Bucky starting to act even a little bit more like his old self, Steve was really starting to warm up to this idea.

“Fine,” Bucky said with exaggerated reluctance. “No dates this time. Just you and me. How’s that?”

Steve rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the way his heart had suddenly sped up in his chest. “Well, in that case, I think you might have a deal. I just - I’m not sure we’ve got the money to spare for drinks….”

Something almost like fear flashed across Bucky’s face, and Steve quickly amended his statement. “Guess it doesn’t matter. If this is really what you wanna do, we’ll find a way to make it work.”

Bucky grinned one of his practiced grins, pausing to pat Steve on the shoulder before retreating to his room, presumably to get dressed. But he left a tiny crack in the door, letting a sliver of light spill out into the hallway. The sight of that small patch of light made Steve almost irrationally happy. It meant Bucky wasn’t completely shutting him out. Maybe, just maybe, it meant progress. So, he decided, their evening plans were settled.

* * *

An hour later, Steve was in the kitchen fussing with their few clean glasses and the bottle of liquor he’d just picked up from the store, and Bucky was in the living room fiddling with the dials on the radio.

Bucky had managed to get his shirt halfway buttoned over a t-shirt, but it hung open around his neck, and his tie was draped loose and unfastened over his shoulders. He’d put gel in his hair, but it was already slipping a little, and a few strands of his dark bangs had flopped forward to curl over his forehead. He looked up from setting up the radio just as Steve stepped into the room with their drinks, and Steve almost had to do a double take. Bucky still had bags under his eyes and a few uncharacteristic little nicks on his cheeks, testaments to the difficulty of shaving with only one hand, but the whole tableau of him half-dressed up and ready for a night out was so familiar that Steve could almost imagine that the war had never happened, that they were both their old selves again and nothing had ever come between them.

“Hey,” Bucky said, reaching over to grab his drink from Steve’s hand, then giving him a once-over, running his eyes down to Steve’s shoes and back up again.

“What?” Steve asked.

“You look good, pal,” Bucky said simply.

Steve blinked, taken aback. He was sure he hardly looked any different than he did every day - his threadbare shirt had definitely been patched up one too many times, and his shoes had probably seen better days during the Hoover administration. But Bucky didn’t seem to notice or care. His eyes lingered on Steve’s freshly combed hair, on the pink spreading over his clean-shaven face.

Bucky tilted his head back and took a long drink, then resettled his eyes on Steve’s face. “You really sure you’re up for this?” he asked. “Don’t want you pushing yourself too hard and flaring up that asthma, or catching a cold, or -”

Steve grinned. This was more like the Bucky he remembered, protective almost to a fault, worrying about Steve even when he ought to have been worrying about himself. 

“I’m fine, Buck. Really. You about ready to go?”

Bucky shook his head, long-suffering. “C’mon, Stevie, you know we never just go.” He set his drink down and reached for the radio again, cranking up the volume until the sounds of brassy band music filled the room. As sound permeated the apartment, Bucky drained his drink, then squeezed past Steve and headed back for the kitchen. He returned with another full glass and a smile that looked just a little easier than the forced and nervous ones he’d been putting on all evening.

“Getting ready’s half the fun,” Bucky reminded Steve, who had moved to sit on the couch, holding tight to his own glass simply to have something to do with his hands. Bucky flopped down beside him, further tousling his carefully done hair in the process. Up close, Steve could tell his eyes were a little glazed, the alcohol already taking effect. “Not like we’ve got dates to pick up or anything. Unless you’ve got someone you aren’t telling me about.”

Bucky’s tone was joking, but Steve could have sworn there was something weightier behind his eyes. He did his best to ignore it, keeping his own voice light.

“Very funny, Buck. You know as well as I do that’s not true. Girls don’t exactly line up to go dancing with me.”

Bucky scoffed, looking offended on Steve’s part. His familiar indignation sent something warm flaring up in Steve’s chest.

“Really?” he asked, a strange sincerity in his voice. “Whole time I was… gone, you never went out with anyone?”

Steve’s lips twisted into a grimace, and he shook his head. He’d only ever been out with girls when Bucky set the two of them up with double dates, so his romantic prospects had pretty much evaporated as soon as Bucky had shipped out. He’d attributed it to the fact that girls just weren’t interested in him, wouldn’t look twice at him when they could go dancing with a real soldier instead. If he was honest with himself, he’d missed those dates, a little - but lately he’d been realizing that the girls maybe weren’t the reason he’d missed them.

“Crying shame,” Bucky muttered into his glass. “You’re a catch, Steve. Any girl out there would be lucky to have you.”

Steve’s heart somersaulted. He did his best to laugh it off. “Hardly. And I can’t even dance, anyway. Even when you used to set me up with girls, they’d end up dancing with someone else all night.”

Bucky’s eyebrows went up, and something sparked to life in his face. “Well, part of that we can fix, can’t we?”

“What?”

“C’mon.” Bucky downed the rest of his drink, then stood up, setting down his glass and offering his hand out to Steve. “We’ve let this go on long enough, Stevie. It’s about time you learned how to dance.”

Too surprised to argue, Steve took Bucky’s hand, feeling the faint remnants of calluses on his palm as he pulled himself up to stand.

“I’m gonna step on your toes,” he protested weakly, but Bucky wasn’t listening. He clumsily tugged Steve by the hand until the two of them were standing face to face. Steve breathed in Bucky’s cologne, the spice of liquor on his breath, and his head spun. They’d lived their entire lives side by side, but somehow they’d never felt this _close._

“Doesn’t matter,” Bucky said. “It’s fine.”

“What - what am I supposed to do?” Steve stammered, hating how small his voice sounded. He’d spent years trying to convince people he wasn’t as small or weak as he seemed, but somehow all it took was Bucky’s presence and all that effort was undone. 

Bucky guided Steve’s hands, one by one, around his back.“I’m gonna follow,” he said. “You’ve gotta learn how to lead.”

So Steve did. Bucky had to nudge him a little to get him into the right position, had to steer him around until he grew comfortable with the movements, until somewhere along the line Steve stopped being sure who was leading anymore, him or Bucky. As a slow song played over the radio, their shared momentum carried them in fumbling circles across the living room floor, Steve holding his breath and predictably tripping a little over Bucky’s feet.

But all the hesitancy and awkwardness hardly mattered, because all Steve could feel was how incredibly close they were, sharing space and warmth and breath, so different from the months they'd just spent seemingly apart. He tore his focused gaze from his feet for just a second to look up, and all he could see was Bucky - his wide blue eyes, the familiar curve of his lips, the way his hair came tumbling over his forehead just right, and…

Something in Steve’s heart clicked into place. 

He _loved_ Bucky. 

Not like a friend. Not even like a brother, like family. It was like nothing he’d ever felt before. Like he wanted more than anything to lean forward and press their lips together, damn the consequences. Like he wanted to stay here in Bucky’s arms forever. Like something awful would happen if either of them ever let go.

“You okay?”

At the sound of Bucky’s voice, Steve jumped, pulled back into reality. Only belatedly did he realize that he’d stopped moving. The slow song on the radio had faded out, the tinny voice of a radio announcer crackling in to take its place. Though their dance had drifted to a halt, Steve still had his arms around Bucky. He twitched, instinct telling him to let go, but he stayed put, forcing himself to meet Bucky’s eyes.

“What?” Bucky asked. The word rolled off his tongue easily, a match for the pleasant fuzz of alcohol taking up residence in Steve’s brain.

Steve said the first thing he could think of.

“I missed you.” It was true, in more senses than one.

For a split second, Steve could have sworn Bucky felt it too, the same strange closeness that had somehow made everything so much clearer. He was inclining his head just slightly down, and Steve was looking up, and in that moment he’d half-convinced himself to lean in and bridge the gap entirely - but it was too much. The radio started playing again, a louder, faster song cutting through the silence. Startled back to his senses, Steve realized the gravity of what he’d been about to do. He quickly pulled away, dropping his hands from Bucky’s back for good measure.

“We should go,” he said, mostly just to fill the uncomfortable pause.

Bucky ran a sheepish hand over the back of his neck. “Yeah. Right.”

“Can I…” 

Steve braved closing the distance between them again. He found the ends of the tie draped around Bucky’s neck, giving him a questioning look. Bucky tensed his jaw a little but nodded, giving Steve permission to fasten it around his neck.

“You taught me that, remember?” Steve said as he did it, and some of the hesitancy in Bucky’s face faded away.

“Yeah. I do. Remember how it took you years to finally get it right, too.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “C’mon, I wasn’t _that_ bad. See?” He finished up the knot, quickly dropping his hands from Bucky’s chest. “You finally ready to go?”

Bucky nodded, but rather than moving to the door, he moved to the remainder of Steve’s drink sitting on the coffee table. 

“You gonna finish that?”

Steve shrugged. “Guess not?”

Bucky took the glass, working quickly to finish it as he made his way unsteadily towards the door to slip into his shoes. He turned to give a quick smile, offset by the redness creeping up in his cheeks. “Ready, then.”

There was something not quite right about that easy smile, about how long Bucky spent holding onto Steve’s empty glass before finally letting it go. But Steve didn’t have time to worry about it - things were good tonight, better than they had been in a long time, and he fully intended to hold onto that unfamiliar feeling of happiness for as long as he possibly could. 

* * *

New York felt alive, buzzing with energy. Maybe it was the uptick in good news coming over from the front in Europe, maybe it was just the steady approach of spring, but whatever it was, the city was bright and exciting in a way it hadn’t been since before the States had joined in the war. 

Rather than taking the train, Steve and Bucky walked down to the dance hall. Steve was half-worried that they were set to repeat their first ill-fated attempt at leaving the apartment together, but Bucky didn’t seem half so panicked as he had during that aborted trip to the diner months earlier. He still had a placid smile on his face, and he seemed largely unconcerned with the crowds of people on the street or gathered at the entrance of the dance hall.

In fact, he was a little _too_ unconcerned, and was starting to put Steve on edge. Not helping was the fact that Steve, knowing he was a notorious lightweight, had stopped after half a drink back at their apartment, but Bucky hadn’t shown nearly the same restraint. So while Steve arrived at the dance hall already sobering up and intent on staying that way, Bucky arrived with his eyes still a little glazed and made a beeline for the bar almost immediately upon entering.

“You alright?” Steve couldn’t resist checking in when Bucky returned to the table he’d staked out, drink in hand. 

“‘Course,” Bucky assured him, sliding into a seat. But Steve didn’t miss the slight tremor in his hand as he lifted his glass to take a sip. Steve frowned at the blatant lie, but chose not to point it out.

“You aren’t going to go dance?” he asked instead. 

Bucky shrugged, casting a wary eye around the room. The hall was crowded with people, girls in red lipstick and curls and guys dressed in a mixture of pressed shirts and uniform jackets. They were packed onto the dance floor and squeezed between the tables scattered around the edges, filling up all the available space. Places like this had always been where Bucky felt the most comfortable, happy to command the attention of the room while Steve was relegated to the outskirts. But with the way he was sitting now, slouched over his glass and scanning the room with anxious hypervigilance instead of confidence, Steve could see clearly that Bucky felt the furthest thing from comfortable.

He opened his mouth again to ask if Bucky was really okay, but in the end he couldn’t make himself do it. He was too tired of hearing Bucky lie to him over and over again. 

After running through a few slow songs, the band onstage started up something fast and upbeat, and people standing around the edges of the floor scrambled to grab partners to dance. Steve kept his head down, staring at the wood of the table. He was used to being invisible, to hanging back when people started to pair up. Bucky, however, wasn’t, and it startled Steve to look up and find him still sitting across the table as the dance kicked into motion. When he caught Steve’s eyes, though, Bucky abruptly shoved back from the table and stood up.

“What’re you…”

“Getting a drink,” Bucky mumbled over his shoulder, and he was gone.

The second time it happened, Steve nearly broke down and asked Bucky what the hell was going on. Instead, he asked, “don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

“Nah,” Bucky replied, slurring a little. “‘M fine.” But his hand was still shaking, and he was still looking around the room like any one of the dancers crowding the floor might be a threat. Steve may have been used to the lies by now, but he wasn’t used to them being quite so shameless. He felt something almost resentful start to simmer in his chest. 

As Bucky worked on his third drink, a few girls passed by the table, vying for eye contact with him. The old Bucky would have preened under the attention, but all Bucky did now was try for a wavering smile that didn’t quite hold. 

“Really think you oughta slow down,” Steve said once the girls were out of earshot, nodding to the glasses on the table. Bucky either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. Steve let out a long, frustrated breath, turning all his attention towards kicking idly at the leg of the table for the sake of having something to do that wasn’t grabbing Bucky by the collar and shaking some sense into him.

The band finished up with another of the quick songs they’d been playing all night. In the few minutes of ensuing silence, Steve sat and stared at the table, pointedly avoiding looking over at Bucky on the other side. Eventually the musicians came back and regrouped, this time starting up with something slow. The melody was familiar, and Steve sat for a second trying to place it.

“Hey,” he said. “That’s -” 

It was the song that had been playing in their apartment just hours before, he’d meant to say, the one that had been in the background while he stumbled over Bucky’s feet and made slow circles across the living room floor. He finally looked up from the table to relay the message, but when he laid eyes on Bucky, his words died in his throat. Bucky was practically green in the face, staring dazedly down at the floor as his throat worked overtime to swallow.

“Bucky?”

Bucky made eye contact with Steve for one second, his face a mixture of illness and raw fear, like he’d only just realized what was happening to him. Before Steve could even think to do anything about it, Bucky was out of his seat, chair skidding back as he got his footing and stumbled over to the edge of the room. He found the bar’s side door, not looking back before leaning against it and quietly disappearing outside.

_“Shit,”_ Steve bit out. For just a few seconds he sat still, alone amidst the low light and the music and the rush of bodies breezing past him. The smoldering frustration inside him had reached a burning point. This was _always_ how things went with Bucky lately, and a bitter voice inside him was telling him that it was hardly his problem. Bucky had brought this upon himself, that Steve didn’t owe it to him to fix it.

But deep down he knew that wasn't fair. And even more intense was the pull he still felt to Bucky, the way he felt lost and unmoored in the crowd of people without him. He blamed his stupid, lovesick heart for propelling him out of his seat and over to the door before his mind could think to convince him to stay. 

He brushed out of the bar and into the dingy alleyway that ran behind it. He was immediately affronted by the smells emanating both from the overflowing garbage cans piled up by the door and the stagnant puddles of old water that had accumulated on the ground, and he wrinkled his nose. The alley was dark and cramped, with noise from the street echoing off its crumbling brick walls. This was New York, Steve reminded himself grimly - not their perfect view from up on the fire escape or the bright lights and buzz of excitement that accompanied a night out, but the far more common, ugly other side.

Bucky was braced against the opposite wall of the alley, his visibly trembling hand pressed up against the crumbling brick. Steve scarcely had time to lay eyes on him through the darkness before Bucky was doubling over at the waist, narrowly missing his shoes as he vomited a wave of liquor all over the dirty ground. 

“Damn it, Buck!” Steve’s legs carried him to Bucky’s side practically against his will. At his words, Bucky’s shoulders jerked forward in a wince, or maybe another retch, Steve wasn’t sure. Steve had the presence of mind to keep from touching him, but he couldn’t keep a barrage of angry words from spilling out of his mouth.

“What the hell? I told you to slow down. I’ve been telling you all night, but you wouldn’t listen. Maybe if you’d quit with all this ‘I’m fine’ bullshit for one second and just talked to me, you wouldn’t be so sick, you wouldn’t -”

Bucky’s shoulders twitched again in a painful-sounding hiccup, and Steve trailed off with a huff of frustration. Only when Bucky swayed a little and his knees started to buckle did a wave of guilt wash over Steve, and his heart kicked back into gear.

“Okay. Okay.” Steve grabbed Bucky under the arms, supporting him and steering him away from the worst of the puddles on the ground as he crumpled. Steve propped him up with his back against the wall, then sank down into a squat beside him. Bucky’s head dizzily lolled forward over his chest, and Steve winced as he hiccuped again and brought his hand up to cage it over his mouth in some futile attempt at controlling his nausea.

“Too much, huh?” Steve asked softly, once Bucky relaxed a little and no longer seemed to be in imminent danger of being sick again. Bucky gave a noncommittal grunt, clumsily tucking his knees up to his chest and resting his forehead against them. Steve sighed. He sat and titled his head back to lean against the wall, sending some silent prayer for answers up into the narrow strip of sky above him. He sat half-hoping for a response, for some divine intervention to show him what to do, but was only met with silence in turn. 

“Steve.” 

It wasn’t a voice from above - it was Bucky’s voice, soft and unsure beside him.

“Yeah?”

“I-I’m not… not doin’ so good.”

“Yeah. I know,” Steve sighed. “But we’ll get you home. You’ll start feeling better once you’ve had time to sleep it off.”

“No. I mean, ‘m not… okay.”

Steve snapped his full attention to Bucky.

“Thought ‘f I just kept saying it, I could fix it, but -” Bucky breathed raggedly. “I… can’t. I can’t.”

The words were jumbled and slurred, but Steve heard them loud and clear. His chest ached as it once again flooded to the brim with suffocating love and hurt in equal measure. 

“That why you drank so much tonight?” he asked softly. 

Bucky nodded miserably, eyes still trained on the ground between his knees. “Thought it might help ‘f I could just… pretend. I dunno. But… fuck. Steve, it doesn’t work, nothing works, I can’t fix it, ‘n I don’t know what to do, ‘n I just - I don’t _feel_ good.”

Steve watched helplessly as Bucky’s lower lip started to tremble. Bucky hurriedly dragged his hand up to cover his mouth like he was afraid to let Steve to see, but his shoulders were shaking and his eyes were starting to water and it quickly became clear that he was going to cry whether he wanted to or not. 

“Hey,” Steve whispered as gently as he could manage. The tone of voice felt foreign to him, and it took him a second to place where all that softness came from, so different from his usual defensive anger. It was Bucky. He’d borrowed it from Bucky.

After a moment of paralyzed hesitation, Steve wound his arm around Bucky’s shoulders, offering comfort the only way he could think to. Bucky went stiff for a second, but between the emotion and the alcohol and the pure fatigue of trying so hard and pretending to be okay for so long, he soon couldn’t help but give in. He slackened against Steve, leaning towards him with his whole body, desperate for contact as he choked a sob into his shirt.

_“Please,”_ Bucky kept gasping. Steve couldn’t even hope to guess what he was begging for.

“It’s alright,” he whispered anyway, holding Bucky to him as his shoulders shook and hoping to god he was telling the truth. “Just breathe. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

It took a few minutes for Bucky’s tears to begin dying down, a few minutes of shallow breath punctuated by sobs and hot tears soaking through the fabric of Steve’s shirt. When Bucky was breathing somewhat evenly again, Steve gently shifted so that his face was no longer pressed against his shirt, instead letting his head settle comfortably against his shoulder.

“God. I’m sorry, Buck,” he said after a moment of trying and failing to gather words. “I’m sorry you’ve been having a hard time.”

Bucky made a hollow sound of acknowledgement. Steve took a deep breath. It was now or never, he thought. He couldn’t tell Bucky exactly how he felt, but he had to do something. He had to try. 

“I don’t know what you went through over there, but I know it was… a lot. And I wish I knew how to help you. I wish I could fix it. But you just, you can’t keep shutting me out. Please. You gotta talk about some of this before it - before it hurts you even more.”

Bucky groaned softly, head still resting against Steve’s shoulder.

“Can you do that? Can you talk to me?”

“I don’t…”

“Not now, I mean. Just… anytime. About anything. Please, just let me in.”

Bucky took a deep breath and slowly lifted his head. Steve looked over to him, watched him set his jaw in determination. Even though it looked difficult, even though he was clearly still dizzy and unsteady, he nodded. It took bravery, Steve realized. In the face of it, he loved Bucky more than he’d ever thought was possible.

“Good,” Steve said, unable to keep from smiling a little. It felt wrong, almost; Bucky had spent weeks forcing a smile, almost certainly for Steve’s benefit, but none of those smiles had made Steve nearly as happy as he felt now. 

But he couldn’t help it. Bucky was _talking_ to him, more genuinely than he maybe ever had, and it felt like the clouds were beginning to clear. After weeks and weeks of suffocating, Steve finally felt like he could breathe again. 

“Okay,” he said after a moment. “You think you’re gonna be okay to walk home?”

He could hear Bucky working hard to swallow. “In - in a minute?”

“Yeah. Okay. Whenever you feel like you can stand, I can help you…” The words were familiar, and Steve smiled a little wider when he realized why. They, too, where Bucky’s, spoken every time he pulled a half-dead Steve out of a back-alley fight he’d been too small for, spoken every time Steve had tried to keep up with him on a night out and ended up drinking far too much as a result.

“Guess I owe you one, after all the times you’ve carried me home,” Steve said wryly. Beside him, Bucky actually laughed. The sound was wet and shaky, but it was still genuine. 

“Good luck with that,” Bucky slurred. “Don’t think you could carry me if you tried, punk.”

“Keep telling me what I can and can’t do, I might just have to prove you wrong,” Steve joked. He met Bucky’s eyes, smiling, and was relieved to see Bucky smiling back at him, small and timid but _real._

As they sat there together, listening to the sounds of the city as it moved on without them, Steve couldn’t help but speak up again. 

“We’re gonna be okay, you know?” he whispered. “We’re gonna make it.”

Bucky didn’t respond. He looked sideways at Steve, like he was seeking confirmation, like he wanted to be sure the words were true. And Steve decided they would be. They still had a long way to go, he knew. But they’d make it.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they were listening to [this song,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk-6F56Y0-s) maybe?
> 
> thanks so much to everyone still reading!! <3


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